The Online Banking and Brokerage Challenge
In today's networked world, millions of people worldwide are turning to online banking and brokerage to streamline and simplify their lives. But nearly as many people are choosing not to use these online services, and seemingly for good reason. An April 2008 Bankrate survey found that 48% of Americans with internet access avoid online banking and brokerage trading out of concern for identity theft. These alarming numbers highlight the opportunity lost by consumers for increased productivity as well as the opportunity lost by banks and brokerage houses to offer innovative products to their customers.
The general public has legitimate cause for concern with online financial fraud. A joint Javelin Strategy & Better Business Bureau “Identity Fraud Survey” study reports 8.9M victims of online fraud and identity theft in the US for 2006, leading to losses of $56.6 Billion. To regain customer confidence, banks and brokerage houses have turned to anti-fraud guarantees. This approach is unsustainable, however, because it does little to restore customer trust after an incident they do not stop financial losses from occurring, leading to further funding and more resources for the bad guys.
Traditional Safeguards Fail, Breeding Fear
Traditional approaches to safeguard against online banking and brokerage threats like viruses, spyware and other malware rely on a fundamentally flawed methodology. By all accounts, signature based approaches, including anti-virus and anti-spyware toolkits, have abysmal success rates stopping malware and providing secure online transactions. Leading anti-virus vendor Trend Micro agrees, CEO Eva Chen says "the anti-virus industry sucks. If you have 5.5 million new viruses out there how can you claim this industry is doing the right job?"
The net result is that the majority of systems are already compromised or soon will be. Research done by leading analysts estimate that 40-60% of all consumer PCs are compromised with some type of malware. Customers -- potential users of online banking and brokerage services -- are aware of this threat, but feel powerless to stop it.
How are criminals using these compromised PCs? In addition to "phishing" scams that deceive consumers into giving up sensitive personal information, malware resident on their PCs is able to steal user credentials (user name, password, and additional information) to gain online access to user accounts. With this information, criminals are able to execute online fraud such as "pump and dump" schemes where they hijack accounts to simultaneously execute trades in thinly traded securities to manipulate prices. The losses due to malware are staggering – E*Trade, for example, reported $30M in losses for the first half of 2006 alone.
How do financial services companies allay public fears about online transactions and simultaneously manage the associated financial risk?
How can businesses extend their corporate security environment to their consumers?
How can they regain the trust and credibility with their customers that they have lost?
SiteTrust -- Secure Transactions in an Insecure World
The answer is SiteTrust, the leading solution for securing online banking, brokerage and eCommerce transactions. SiteTrust is the next generation in fraud prevention solutions that protects the integrity of the business or financial transaction and prevents millions 
of dollars in annual losses due to online fraud.
It effectively extends your corporate security perimeter out to partner and customer machines during online transactions so that each transaction is protected from initial authentication to completion as if it were occurring inside your corporate domain – from fingertip to server. SiteTrust redefines the fraud and malware problem by taking a new an innovative approach to protecting both the business and the consumer, rebuilding the trust in online financial and ecommerce business. SiteTrust’s new approach includes:
- The presumption that a PC is already infected
- A focus on securing a transaction rather than the whole machine
- A flexible, risk based approach for both deployment and usage to meet the needs of consumers
- The ability to extend the corporate security perimeter to consumer computers during transactions.
SiteTrust was able to demonstrate 100% effectiveness at stopping known malware by two independent laboratory evaluations. For banks and brokerage houses looking to provide superior secure customer experience, and capture more market share and competitive advantage, SiteTrust is the only solution.