73% reuse online banking details for other websites

2010-02-03

Almost three-quarters (73 per cent) of online banking customers reuse their login details to access non-financial and significantly less secure websites, research has indicated.

Almost half (47 per cent) use both their online banking user ID and password to login elsewhere online, according to the Trusteer findings, which were based on a sample of more than four million users of the Rapport browser security service.

The research also showed that when a bank allows people to select their own user ID, almost two-thirds (65 per cent) of them share this ID with non-financial websites.

"Using stolen credentials remains the easiest way for criminals to bypass the security measures implemented by banks to protect their online applications," commented Amit Klein, chief technology officer of Trusteer and head of the company's research organisation.

This news may be even more of a concern for internet users, given that Alan Phillips, chief executive officer of 7Safe, recently said that fraudsters are becoming increasingly sophisticated in carrying out phishing attacks.

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