PatInCanada

Millions still connect to the net this way, some out of choice, others in remote areas, where broadband is not available.

Online banking, with malware increasing daily, is becoming more and more risky for those un-protected by anti-malware/spyware programs. Firewalls and Anti-Virus programs running, are often by-passed or rendered useless.
Yet most Banks fail to warn account holders of this rapidly increasing malware risk to users computer.

Can you recommend an anti-malware/spyware program, with daily automatic updates, that will handle these slow dial up connections and not freeze it up?

Would it be safer to fall back to telephone banking?

ejames82

welcome to TSF,
i didn't realize there was an added risk of any kind, due to the dial-up connection. i always thought the general consensus was that, hackers targeted broadband computers because they can do more dirty work with the added speed.
i can see your point about the need for daily updates. i use kaspersky, and it updates hourly most of the time, sometimes more. it does have a tendency to slow down my computer sometimes, but i am not getting even close to the speed you're getting. i only get 31.2 kbps. my computer has never froze, and i do online banking all the time. there's never been any money taken out of my account except by me.
you could also consider bitdefender, nod32, and avira. i think they update quite often.
if you're a security nut, and worry about everything, run netstat, monitor your firewall status, do leak tests, scan alot with different programs and update them, and have never had a nasty infection (certain malware can make your computer untrustworthy, even after it's removed), i think online banking with your computer is just as safe as telephone banking.

johnhook

ejames82,

I agree with ejames82's advice. If you're running XP without any Internet Security software, make sure to ENABLE XP's built-in firewall. There are lots of good protection features in IE that can block potential threats, privacy invasions, bad scripts, unsigned sites, etc.

If your Internet activity is restricted to KNOWN secure sites (banking, e-commerce, general browsing) and you're NOT going to any warez sites, downloading any freeware, shareware, warez or other dangerous software, you're NOT running any P2P filesharing programs like LimeWire, eMule, Bittorrent or the likes - then you're probably OK on a dialup connection with limited, known-safe Internet activity. eMails are another source of worms, trojans and malware scripts so be sure to NEVER open up emails from ANY source unknown to you - regardless of how legit or tempting the subject of the email might be.

If you're still worried about malware and infections - I would do the following:

1) ALWAYS keep current backups of your data and full backups of your PC.

2) Install a decent AntiVirus/Internet Security Suite on your PC such as NOD32, McAfee Security Suite or Norton Internet Security.

Understand that installing AV/IS suites (especially Norton) WILL slow down your PC's performance. I'm told good things about NOD32.

Unrelated to your question about AV/IS/Protection software; I was a dial-up user for MANY years - dating back to the old 300 Baud modems when there wasn't a publically accessible internet and BBS sites were basically all you could accesss. I have gone through ALL of the dialup technology advances; 1200 -> 2400 -> 9600 -> 33K ->56K. Having been on a wide variety of broadband connections, I would NEVER go back to dial-up access! You are so limited by what you can do with dial-up that one you experience broadband, you'll never go back to dialup.

If you're in a remote location where broadband is not available, I would put pressure on your local telephone company, cable TV (in any) provider and or your wireless/cellular provider, DEMANDING some type of broadband internet solution. You need to ban together with others in your area and demand broadband from your telco or cable TV provider (if you have a Cable TV provider). Too many of these big "Ma Bell" telephone companies and cable companies are so motivated by profit that they can't cost-justify building or extending their broadband network access into remote or rural areas. This is wrong considering the huge profits they're making from urban and suburban areas. Broadband over digital cellular is an option of you have digital cellular access in your location - but these plans are generally quite expensive. I would start with your telephone company. If they can bring you dialtone for your 56K dialup access, they have the capability of offering DSL if there's a market in your area.

- John

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PatInCanada

Thanks ejames82 and johnhook for your replies and advice. I too have heard good things about kapersky.

Of course I'm on broadband, here in the wilds of Alberta, just 40 miles east of the Rockies and 20miles north of the US Montana border. 2 years ago, when I moved here from Ontario, I got my internet connection via microwave, line of sight, from Lethbridge 45 mile miles north, bounced off tall grain storage bins right to the Montana border. Last year they switched to radio from microwave, hich speeded things up considerably. 100KB at best 30KB when the service is busy. Alas too much 'jitter' and 'noise' for VOIP.

In London UK, my younger brother is on 56K dial up, by choice. Frugal by nature and a confirmed batchelor, he has built up quite a successful investment portfolio over the years, all of which is he has online. The growth in malware has been explosive, estimated over a million at present with many Keyloggers included. Once lodged on a computer, with a fraudster in control, passwords pin numbers, credit card numbers are all under his control and accounts can be drained, stocks sold in minutes. As a parting gift f5rom the hacker, the hard drive could be fried, to buy time before discovery.

No longer are phishing emails the preferred method of delivery. Banks have done a great job warning their customers about these. More and more malware is being planted on visitors pcs from websites with hackers in control, far less by phishing emails.

UK banks are well aware of these dangers with fraud increasing. This Times article, November 28, 2004 was among the first. Clare's last one in The Times was published April 24/08.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...icle396299.ece

Banks are warning their clients that it is their responsibilty to ensure their PCs are secure, not the banks! However they are still not advising clients to install an anti spyware/malware program on their computers nor about the danger of using IE as a browser!

A real shocker from PcWorld "IE the number 1 threat to internet security" They do give full explanations for this decision.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,12...y/article.html

Most people involved in security use Firefox, Opera or other more secure browsers on their home PCs.

My pc is well protected. Comodo Firewall, Anti Virus, BOClean to deal with malware/spyware. All free and unbelievable support from Comodo on their programs. Of course with humans on the opposite side, that could well change. Vigilance with online accounts is always neccessary.

I use Piriam CCleaner to keep garbage off the registry, it also dumps those temp internet files and junk cookies. A great feature is that it links to the Windows Garbage Bin as well. I have the Gutman option set, 35 overwrites, almost impossible to recover data from the hard drive. All in seconds, it sure keeps my computer running fast and again absolutely free for home users, they do ask for donations however.

John, we are two of a kind. Hardware early on, yes I remember those 300baud modems. In 1985 I carted my MS-Dos XP into Tandy to get the 128KB ram upgraded to 256KB, in order to run DBase. I looked on in awe as the technician planted all those ram chips into my computer. My how fast everything has changed over the years. In the mid nineties I went online as an internet service provider. I had intended to run an MS OS on servers, like the other ISPs at that time. Then I saw their services being taken down by hackers and staying that way for days in some cases. I decided to go BSDI Unix. A week later and US$10,000 poorer, I returned from California and built servers to their exact specifications. Though there were several attacks, none suceeded but one came close with CPU's down to 17% before the process was spotted and killed.

I am no security expert, having been retired since 2005 and out of business, just self taught and experience. ISPs, Banks etc are always concerned about security on their networks, but unless an attack is takes place we certainly don't lose sleep overnight worrying about it. Like yourselves I have banked online for your years, never a penny missing. However I do see a major threat with the fast growth of malware on the internet. Yet the MS Security Centre on Windows computers makes no mention of anti malware/spyware programs being a must have nowadays.

Agreed hackers tend to move away from dial up fast, broadband is far more lucrative. However with malware already on the target computer, it's easy pickings to drain accounts. Connection speed has no bearing on account balances. Many retirees are on dial up.

Thanks again for you help and advice. As I suspected it's difficult for anyone on 56k dial up protect their system with the size of programs nowadays. I have been bugging my brother for years to get on broadband, he certainly can afford it. Now I owe my brother a warning about his online accounts, they are at risk from malware. He could try and load anti spyware/malware but that could slow down his internet connection further. Then no other choice but to remove the online stuff or migrate to a faster connection where he can add adequate protection. A task I dread, but whether or not he heeds my advice, at least I have given a warning. Easy way is to say nothing, but if disaster struck I would feel guilty for the rest of my life.

Thanks for your time, sorry about the length and dead links. I'm a newbie around here.

Patrick.

johnhook

PatInCanada,

Yeah - the good old days of the "Trash-80" the Commodore PET, Vic 20 and C-64 to name a few. I remember when the Intel 80286 was a big deal! The IBM PS2, etc...Been there - done that and now am seen my 16-year-old geeks on sites like this as an obsolete Dinosaur.

Most of the malware, viruses and hacks out there are a result of all of the wonderful networking, programming, application interfaces and scripting standards built into Windows OSs makes it a great platform to network and develop applications on - especially for Microsoft's Application software and networking architecture. Unfortunately, the downside of all this tightly coupled interoperability is how vulnerable Windows OSs are to viruses, network hacks and malware in general. The fact that Windows has the largest install base of any OS out there makes it a fun target to those who are challenged by exploiting its security flaws. I would love to see Linux overtake Windows as the dominant desktop OS. Linux is far more efficient, doesn't HOG hardware the way Windows does and is far less vulnerable to malware.

As far as Internet access goes - Ma Bell's twisted-pair dial-up and DSL need to go away. Comcast and Time Warner need to hang up their Coax cables. Forget about cellular wireless and satellite TV/Broadband. I see a future where every home and business is wired directly with a fiber-optic connection, capable of handling Terabytes of data - giving users telephone, internet, television and MUCH more! Due to the inherant limitations of all the existing technologies - fiber is the obvious choice. I believe it's simply a matter of time.

- John

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PatInCanada

John,

Was wondering about the reaction I would get here on my comments about MS and security in my last post. I never gave any indication of my thoughts in my original post. MS have been masters in marketing and brainwashing while hiding their codes. That way they drove competition out of business. When the net arrived, Netscape was the browser of choice, just look at them now.

MS got off lightly in US Courts and settled. Not in the the EU, now 500million population, a market too big for MS to ignore. Fines totalling US2.57Billion and growing daily until they comply. No way will the EU let MS off the hook. MS doesn't have the influence there. An interesting read..........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europea...antitrust_case

Slowly ma bell, telus out west, is moving out of cities into rural areas with fiber optic. If the CRTC were acting in Canadians interests, instead of telcos, they would set a time limit for Canada to go fiber optic or DSL goes. That would speed them up.

The ISPs that pioneered the internet in Canada were driven out of business by the CRTC failing to enforce rulings. None of us could sell broadband, Bell and the cable companies took over. The CRTC is more like a club than a regulator. Since the big guys took over customer ervice has deteriorated.

Emailed my dial up brother in London, UK yesterday. Didn't even mention broadband or faster connections, he should figure be able to figure that one out for himself. Laid it on the line about the growing malware threat and the banks toughening up with customers.

Here's what Scotia Online in Canada tells their customers:

"A Shared Responsibility

To ensure you are protected under the Online Security Guarantee, you must do your part too. That means it is your responsibility to abide by the terms of our customer agreements3 and follow the guidelines in the Safe Computing Practices section of Scotiabank’s website. In particular, you must:
Carefully select your Scotia OnLine sign-on password and Access Code and ensure that they are different from one another. Never select a password or Access Code that is the same as or similar to an obvious number combination such as your date of birth, bank account numbers, ABM PIN number or telephone numbers.

Keep your ScotiaCard number, Scotia OnLine sign-on password, Access Code, and ScotiaCard Security Code number (last three italicized numbers printed on the back of your ScotiaCard) confidential. Do not divulge this information to anyone – including family members, friends, employees, bookkeepers or anyone else. Do not write this information down or keep a poorly disguised record of it, or keep it together with your ScotiaCard.

Notify us immediately in the event of loss, theft, misuse or compromise of your ScotiaCard or ScotiaCard number, Scotia OnLine sign-on password, Access Code, or Scotia OnLine session. You can contact us at 1-800-4 SCOTIA (1-800 472-6842).

Install and maintain up-to-date firewall and virus protection software on your PC or wireless device.

Do not respond to pop-ups, emails, or other Internet requests that ask you to reveal personal information about yourself or your Scotiabank accounts. Scotiabank will never send you unsolicited emails asking for your password, Personal Identification Number (PIN), credit card, account numbers, etc. We will never ask you to validate or restore your account access through unsolicited email.

Review your statements and report any errors in a timely manner. Different transactions have different reporting deadlines. Please see the applicable account agreement3, statement or trade confirmation for further details.


By working together, you can help us protect your financial and personal account information."

That's pretty clear. Your PC, your responsibility, not the banks, plus the requirement to
"Assist us in any investigation into improper access to your accounts." If you don't allow access to your PC for investigation, you'll take the loss.

Around the world Banks are changing terms and conditions. They see online fraud increasing rapidly.

Yet Scotia still fail to mention the importance of customers running anti-spyware protection, on their pcs? Customers regard Scotias security advice as 'Expert'. That omission alone, could leave Scotia open for a class action lawsuit, and responsible. But I'm no lawyer.............

PatInCanada

How do I edit my last post?

Missed the final shared responsibility required by Scotia,

"Assist us in any investigation into improper access to your accounts."

Would like to add it to this post, can't get into edit mode.

Pat

johnhook

PatInCanada,

All of your points about Microsoft are well taken. I know there are a lot of people out there who simply can't stand Microsoft and Bill Gates. While there is truth to the fact that Microsoft has tightly coupled their IE browser with their OS and has many advantages in the Applications market (i.e. Office, etc) because of all the code they've built into their Windows products, I don't necessarily agree that Microsoft has squashed other software vendors from writing high-end software that is perfectly compatible with their Windows Operating Systems. There are thousands of Windows applications out there that work perfectly well with many versions of Windows. Microsoft does a pretty good job at supporting software and hardware developers seeking to create and market Windows compatible software/hardware.

I personally have a love/hate relationship with Microsoft's products (Windows, IE, Office and all their API's and interfaces that make their products "talk" between each other and communicate over networks). Nothing prevented IBM, Apple or any other software giant from developing and marketing a PC desktop OS that could have dominated the market the way Microsoft Windows now does. IBM fell on their face with OS/2, which claimed to be the greated GUI-front-ended OS ever. Apple, with their MAC hardware and OS has a niche market, but nowhere near the install base of MS Windows. Microsoft did a lot of things right in creating and marketing Windows to run on "generic" Intel-based PCs. Apple screwed themselves by making their hardware and micro-code proprietary. IBM simply dropped the ball with OS/2 - leaving Microsoft there to pick up the pieces and create Windows NT and all subsequent versions of NT.

The anti-trust stuff has more to do with browser technology and Internet standards than anything else. Microsoft HAS leveraged their HUGE install-base of Windows to gain an advantage in the Internet arena - but they legitimately gained such a huge install-base of Windows by creating Operating Systems and products that could be run on a wide variety of affordable, "generic" hardware and opened up their architecture to a host of software and hardware developers.

By NO MEANS am I some cheerleader for Microsoft. There are many things about their Windows OS and application products that I do not like. Windows is a resource HOG which eats up RAM, CPU cycles and disk-space like no other OS out there. The fact that Windows runs on such a wide variety of hardware can make it a nightmare to support due to all the variables with hardware compability and drivers. Windows is the MAIN target of viruses, malware and external hack attacks - making it extremely vulnerable if not secured properly. IE uses Microsoft-specific controls, add-ons and APIs which are NOT always compatible with other industry standards. This makes supporting websites and other Internet features difficult as MS products are not always cross-compatible with other Internet standards. This problem isn't just a "Microsoft" problem, but rather a cut-throat competition between competing companies such as AOL, Apple, Sun MicroSystems, Adobe and others. Everyone out there wants to dominate the Internet and as a result - there exists a hodge-podge of incompatible standards that don't work well together across operating systems, browsers and media players.

Personally, I would like to see an open-source OS/Platform such as Linux take over the desktop. Linux is MUCH faster than Windows and will run well with FAR less RAM, CPU and disk space than Windows. They key to open-source platforms like Linux catching on will be when large companies like Adobe start porting their products to run on Linux. Right now, there's no money in doing so when Windows and MAC OS have such a stronghold on the desktop.

The broadband market, much like the desktop OS market, is driven by market share and potential revenue. If the large telcos and broadband cable providers don't see $$$ to be made in a specific area, they typically won't invest. While I do believe in the power of a free-market economy, situations like this, I feel, DO require government intervention. There are many local governments here in the U.S. which are fed up with the slow implementation of broadband by the telcos and cable companies. As a result, they are taking matters into their own hands and "lighting-up" entire cities with broadband. It's not a popular option in a country where big business rules - but necessary when these large companies are leaving out folks who live in rural or sparsely populated areas where an investment in broadband network infrastructure cannot be cost-justified. Dial-up is legacy technology - simply too slow and outdated given the current applications that exist on the Internet today.

You absolutely need a good active firewall and active anti-virus software if you're on the Internet. I wouldn't rely on Window's built-in firewall as it is very rudimentary in its capabilities. Based on everything I've read and all of the interaction I've had with people who are experts in these matters - I would recommend a combination of Zone Alarm (www.zonealarm.com) for firewall protection and NOD32 AntiVirus (www.eset.com). Eset also makes a Security Suite product with a firewall included which is worth checking out. I'm not sure how Eset's "bundled" firewall compares to Zone Alarm (others here - please chime in with your opinions). There are several common sense things you can do to protect yourself while online. NEVER open email from any source you're unfamiliar with. NEVER respond to any pop-up or email that claims to be from a legit source requesting personal information (i.e. banking info, birthdates, addresses, etc.). Enable the built-in privacy and pop-up blocking features in IE or other browsers.

- John

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