Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and NatWest are offering all of
their customers a free download to secure their online banking
activity.
The banks are offering the Rapport software from Trusteer, which
acts as a secure vault within a PC to protect sensitive information
from being stolen online.
The banks first made the software available in January to test
its user acceptance, and 500,000 people have downloaded it. RBS
Group has now decided to promote the software to all of its three
million UK customers.
A spokesperson said the banks, which are both part of RBS,
wanted to make sure the software was being used properly and was
easy to download before announcing its availability to a wider
audience.
Gavin Coull, e-crime prevention manager for RBS Group, said,
"[The software] is fast to download and easy to install, but most
importantly it allows us to quickly and effectively react to
emerging threats. It also enhances the effectiveness of our
existing card reader security."
Barclays was the first UK bank to offer all its online banking
customers a complete and free internet security package. It
provides free anti-virus software, anti-spyware, anti-adware, a
firewall, spam-filtering software and parental controls. The
software is from Kaspersky and would normally retail at £51 for an
annual subscription.
Fraudsters stole £52.2m from UK online bank users in 2008, which
was £29.9m more than
2007
, according to the Association of Payment Clearing Services
(Apacs).
The rise of 132% in a year is the highest since Apacs began
recording this type of fraud in 2004. Online banking fraud actually
fell from £33.5m in 2006 to £22.6m in 2007.
Apacs said that most of the losses were the result of phishing
attacks. This is where a fraudster tricks a user into giving their
confidential account details through an e-mail claiming to be from
their bank. This type of attack increased by 71% in 2008 compared
with 2007. There were 44,000 of these attacks last year compared
with 26,000 the year before.