ING Direct Australia says it will not follow its US arm and give free security software to its local customers.
ING Direct USA has promised to issue its customers free security software to protect against man in the middle attacks, phishing scams, keyloggers, screen-scrapers, and session hijacking.
The software ING offers, Rapport, is built by security company Trusteer and claims to create a "secure pipe" between a customer's PC and the bank's network. ING Direct USA says the software will protect consumers even if the PC is infected with malware that is designed to steal information, such as passwords and identity information.
An ING Direct Australia spokesperson David Breen told ZDNet.com.au it will not offer Australian consumers the same security software.
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"Our preference is to educate our customers on security rather than be a software provider. It's not to say we don't grab great ideas when we see it, but at the moment, the policy is that we regularly update customers on security," he said.
Security experts have questioned ING Australia's decision.
"There is no question that the software will definitely make it harder to compromise the internet banking application. However, the question is, does it make internet banking transactions 100 per cent secure?" Ty Miller, security consultant for Pure Hacking told ZDNet.com.au.
If some of us learn a little about protecting our machines with the usual practices, anti-virus software, OS updates and patches, keeping software up to date, not visiting porn/wares sites, not responding at all to spam e-mail, etc then we are better off than those in the US who are taking for granted that ING is protecting them 100% against all forms of transaction hijacking.
Much better to be aware than complacent.