Asian Banks Warned of New Phishing Attacks

ASIAN BANKS have been warned they could be the next targets of major ­phishing attacks and intrusions by hacking gangs, which have focused on European financial institutions in recent months.

The warning has been given by the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s ­director, technology risk supervision, Tony Chew, during an address to the American Chamber of Commerce luncheon in Singapore entitled ‘Effective Strategies for Internet Banking Security – Online Risk Mitigation’.

Chew highlighted the success of two factor authentication (2FA) – involving consumers using electronic token to generate random access codes - which the Singapore Government and some major banks had introduced to increase ­security and consumer confidence when they access bank websites for investment, ­business and personal banking transactions.

The MAS called on banks to implement 2FA at login for all types of internet banking systems by the end of last year, because using a basic PIN code was now just not enough.