Facebook uk log
Social banking: Would you log into your accounts via Facebook?
Consumers want their banks’ websites to be easy to use, despite fears of a security trade-off. Felicity Hannah asks if social media link-ups are the way forward or “the last nail in the privacy coffin”
We need a new way to log into sensitive online accounts because what we’re doing just now is not working. Whether we’re banking, checking the balance on a peer-to-peer loan, or paying a credit card bill, the plethora of passwords, passcodes and security questions to keep our details safe are rich pickings for fraudsters.
But all too often the carefully engineered security systems fall victim to a very human error: the inability to remember more than one password. The credit checking agency Experian has warned that many bank customers use the same password for online shopping accounts, social media and other services, meaning that a criminal hacking into one of the weaker accounts would then have access to a wide range of data and information. There’s been a recent surge in current account fraud thanks to people using the same passwords for all their online services.
And yet there’s also increasing demand for a smooth, easy-to-use customer experience, one that is at odds with the need for several layers of security when accessing financial services online.
And now it’s been suggested that, instead of being part of the problem, social media like Facebook could be the solution.
Social safety
There’s a growing idea that the web would be a safer place if users had one online identity that they used to verify themselves across a range of services. And few online footprints are as rich and detailed as people’s social media accounts, like Facebook for instance.
Rob Sobers, director at data protection firm Varonis, explains: “Using a single social ID to access to other applications and conduct secure transactions eliminates the problem of storing passwords and other personal information with dozens, if not hundreds, of sites and services. If one of those sites is breached, my password would remain safe.
Consumers want their banks’ websites to be easy to use, despite fears of a security trade-off. Felicity Hannah asks if social media link-ups are the way forward or “the last nail in the privacy coffin”
We need a new way to log into sensitive online accounts because what we’re doing just now is not working. Whether we’re banking, checking the balance on a peer-to-peer loan, or paying a credit card bill, the plethora of passwords, passcodes and security questions to keep our details safe are rich pickings for fraudsters.
But all too often the carefully engineered security systems fall victim to a very human error: the inability to remember more than one password. The credit checking agency Experian has warned that many bank customers use the same password for online shopping accounts, social media and other services, meaning that a criminal hacking into one of the weaker accounts would then have access to a wide range of data and information. There’s been a recent surge in current account fraud thanks to people using the same passwords for all their online services.
And yet there’s also increasing demand for a smooth, easy-to-use customer experience, one that is at odds with the need for several layers of security when accessing financial services online.
And now it’s been suggested that, instead of being part of the problem, social media like Facebook could be the solution.
Social safety
There’s a growing idea that the web would be a safer place if users had one online identity that they used to verify themselves across a range of services. And few online footprints are as rich and detailed as people’s social media accounts, like Facebook for instance.
Rob Sobers, director at data protection firm Varonis, explains: “Using a single social ID to access to other applications and conduct secure transactions eliminates the problem of storing passwords and other personal information with dozens, if not hundreds, of sites and services. If one of those sites is breached, my password would remain safe.