Increasingly sophisticated hacking techniques are a threat not only to private data stored on home computers and mobile devices, but business bank accounts as well.
Increasingly sophisticated hacking techniques are a threat not only to private data stored on home computers and mobile devices, but business bank accounts as well.
A Broome real estate agency (and its bank) learned this year the hard way when $50,000 was stolen and the bank had to reimburse its customer.
Now, a Perth-based business has sought to counter this problem with the launch of a new technology called BankVault.
Developed by GoPC founder and CEO, Graeme Speak, BankVault involves placing a physical computing device (BankVault) in the office, which communicates with a counterpart service running in a remote data centre. The system is immune to malware and other techniques used by hackers because it runs completely separate to the user’s own network.
This distinction is important, according to Mr Speak, because in the Broome bank case – and another involving $19,000 – the two-factor authentication provided by the bank didn’t stop these organisations having their money taken.
“The business is responsible and there can be many times more money there than the business is actually worth,” Mr Speak told Business News.
“Even if hackers were sitting in wait on your network (with BankVault) they would not be able to gain access as the complete environment is pristine, out of reach and created afresh each time you login.”
In other words, the machine you connect to is ‘virtual’ (put together specifically for your session, for example, when paying online bills) and then removed after you logout. The environment looks and feels like a normal web browser session.
A disturbing and increasingly trend is that of automated hack attacks, meaning the hackers will keep persisting at frightening speed and repetition until they find a chink in your armour. If they find a way through your defences, they swarm in to make the most of the vulnerability they have discovered.
“Modern protection, such as firewalls and antivirus software, cannot prevent them entirely,” Mr Speak said.
“Plus these attacks are becoming more frequent and increasingly sophisticated.”
Often their very presence might do nothing more than slow your office server down, but increasingly these attacks are malicious, looking to learn everything they can about you, locate user names and passwords and ultimately launch a coordinated attack to steal your identity.
A recent attack on JP Morgan Chase customers in the US affected 82 million households and businesses.
Closer to home, it has been estimated that 10 per cent of all Australian computer users are infected in one way of another by some form of ‘spyware’, which tracks what web sites you go to.
In the case of the Broome real estate agency, the hackers managed to get in and modify the account details of one recurring payment. The payments were then made, and the property owner had no idea they were being sent to the wrong bank. Afterwards, the hackers modified the code to cover their tracks.
GoPC is ranked #30 in the BNiQ Startups List: http://www.businessnews.com.au/List/startups
Charlie Gunningham is the chief operating officer at Business News.
Twitter: @chazgunningham
