Internet Banking Case Study

External Security Risks associated with Internet Banking

In recent years, Internet banking, namely, online banking means the transitions of banking activities including checking account information and payment of bills through a website (Chavan ,2013, cited Singhal and Padhmanbhan, 2008; Ahasanul et al, 2009), is popular in the world. According to Abdou (2014), in the UK, the number of online banking users has increased from 63% to 70% between 2011 and 2012. Online banking is beneficial for consumers to monitor their account information (Hettiarachchi, 2014), and saves time to transferring funds (Lichtenstein and Williamson, 2006). However, Littler and Melanthiou (2006) point out that internet banking is not completely safe, and faces

The external security risks of online banking have attracted wide attention. Chuang (2002) claims that external security risks are a significant problem of internet banking, and customers could face to direct financial losses because of unauthorised access (by hackers) and the infection of Trojan horse programs, which can be defined as a steal programs (Landwehr et al.1993). For example, according to a report by the British Broadcasting Corporation, compared to 2013, because of external security risks, the financial losses of online banking were increased by 48% in 2014. Specifically, on the one hand, Kujur (2015) argues that hacker intrusion is an important factor result in external security risks of internet banking. This means that hackers use the security bugs (weaknesses) of the internet banking system to exploit

Kondabagil (2007) states, consumers should be informed clearly to understand the information related to the external security risks of Internet banking, such as via bank guidance, which browsing the safety instruction on the bank’s official website. For instance, according to the research of Hiltgen et al (2006), some consumers save their password lists on the computer, and when using the internet banking they click the advertisement and email that are disguised by Trojan program in error, and both could cause financial losses. This is because they do not have the related knowledge about external security risks of Internet banking. Therefore, understanding the external risks knowledge of internet banking is essential for consumers to protect their account safety. Furthermore, according to Claessens et al. (2002), users of internet banking should install a relevant internet banking security certificate, which is a system uses for confirming the security of consumers’ accounts on the website (Hiltgen,2006) and regularly update the firewall, and antivirus program to resist the infection of hackers and Trojan and to protect their account safety. This method may be considered as the most useful action to cope with the