Reading about the $90,000 heist.
Seems to me these learned people didn't read the original info release
on that event. If I can recall, it was a transaction by a family owned
small company in Florida. Their information had been either highjacked
or "phished" and some malcontent simply pulled a transfer.
Since the transfer went to a foreign country ( smart, because of people
on the job or sleeping would not have been available to oversee the
electronic event first hand,) the recipient had plenty of time to ping
around and do his dirt.
The account owner, as many of us, may not have suspected anything going
on and may not have even had a chance to verify a transaction had taken
place. No reason as perhaps he/she did not initiate a transaction and
no urgency to check his account every 5 minutes. Now,
consider some of the information. This was a re-direct action, outside
of the control of the bank from what I understand. Even the bank
safeguards were in place and all appears proper. No need to red flag
the action or the account. It seems to me the bank BoA (Bank of
America) is going beyond the line to support their client.
Where the problem exists is as follows:
1. It is a given that there are devious people out there.
2. It is a given that the transaction took place "Out Of Hand" meaning
it flew through the air via transmission and hardware.
3. It is known that this industry of on line banking is subject to
attempts to infiltrate, modify, manipulate, "crack" and any other
unthought of means of viewing.
And those are just starters for concern.
Now consider this:
Filters, anti-virus programs, anti-spam, firewalls, all are written
programs done so as a product of an event. Hence, timing is an
important factor. Communications and standards governed by laws of
different countries and privacy issue confound the situation. We all
are an infant in cyber world data sharing subject only to new unthought
of events and the corrections or responses to such. And The very
banks and businesses that promote the use of electronic use to access
accounts and or transactions, leads the client to a false sense of
"secured" business actions. So, yes, the banks share in some
responsibility. The client who wants to use the programs and devices,
steps out on thin ice but in many cases, lends his/her trust to those
making such services available. Most people using such business on-line
devices haven't the slightest idea of what is behind it all. They
purchase a computer, decide to enter a new field of activity on it,
have a "computer guru" come in and set it up to perform a certain
function and then believe all is well. And, most of this "use" is
governed by PRICE. No question about it. The
availability to use on-line services is tremendous, saves paperwork,
man-hours, postage, time and is quickly available for retrieval. Many
good points. Now to correct the evils. How to do? For me, I use
only one to pay my telephone bill and or to verify the calls made.
Frightening: About 2 weeks ago I sat with my "friendly banker
person". I asked specific safeguard questions and surprisingly,
received vague if not "no" information on verifying any potential
illegal transaction
events. There were no safeguards she could define, that were in
place. I want to feel comfortable that she was simply not trained
in the area
of my questions. I cut my conversation short and excused
myself after that. My mind made up that "there will be no
electronic banking"
originating from me.As for the $90,000
stolen from those folks, for what ever reason they lost, I feel sad for
them. Be it ignorance, laziness or whatever, I have a feeling, a gut
feeling, THEY TRUSTED and
lost.
As for the thieves, castration and
blindness would be in order for their wrongdoings. Now for the
Governments to correct such events.
RoBo
