ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the organization responsible for the global coordination of the Internet’s system of unique identifiers, should introduce a .safe domain name to be used by registered banks and other financial organizations, according to F-Secure.
According to APACS, the UK payments association, 17 million
people now bank via the Internet in the UK and that figure is set
to rise in the next few years (APACS - The way we pay bills
report, February 2007). The trend is similar in other countries.
But as the number of Internet bankers rise, so too does the amount
of people committing fraud. Compared to the first six months of
2005, online banking fraud rose by 55 per cent in 2006 (APACS -
Press Release - Latest figures show UK card fraud losses continue
to decline in first six months of 2006, November 2006).
If ICANN introduced a .safe domain (or .sure or .bank), which
could only be used by registered financial institutions, it would
allow security providers to create better software to protect the
public, according to F-Secure. It would be similar to other top
level domain names such as .uk and .gov.
"While a .safe domain name won’t prevent phishing attacks, it
will help banks and security providers to keep their customers
safe, said Mikko Hyppönen, Chief Research Officer at F-Secure.
"Banks need to take on some of the responsibility for protecting
their customers and using a secure domain name such as .safe will
give customers the reassurance they need when banking online."
"It’s true this will mean banks have to pay a premium to be able
to use the domain name, but it will reduce the number of successful
phishing sites that have been tricking many customers out of their
hard earned cash," Hyppönen continued.
"Right now, customers have no good way of automatically being
able to tell whether or not a bank website belongs to the bank. So
a small bank or credit union phishing site is something that has to
be researched. If .safe or .sure is locked down, then security
companies would have a much better set of assumptions to start with
when filtering email and web traffic. Security providers would then
be able to build a better security product and users would feel
safe online," said Hyppönen.
"ICANN has the power to create a safer online banking world, by
introducing a top level domain name for banks and other reliable
financial institutions. The idea was mooted some time ago, but with
levels of online fraud as high as they are, now is the time to take
action. .safe would give the millions of online customers the
reassurance they need that banking via the Internet is safe,"
concluded Hyppönen.
About F-Secure Corporation
F-Secure Corporation protects consumers and businesses against
computer viruses and other threats from the Internet and mobile
networks. We want to be the most reliable provider of security
services in the market. One way to demonstrate this is the speed of
our response. According to independent studies in 2004, 2005 and
2006 our response time to new threats is significantly faster than
our major competitors. Our award-winning solutions are available
for workstations, gateways, servers and mobile phones. They include
antivirus and desktop firewall with intrusion prevention, antispam
and antispyware solutions. Founded in 1988, F-Secure has been
listed on the Helsinki Exchanges since 1999, and has been
consistently growing faster than all its publicly listed
competitors. F-Secure headquarters are in Helsinki, Finland, and we
have regional offices around the world. F-Secure protection is also
available as a service through major ISPs, such as Deutsche
Telekom, France Telecom, PCCW and Charter Communications. F-Secure
is the global market leader in mobile phone protection provided
through mobile operators, such as T-Mobile and Swisscom and mobile
handset manufacturers such as Nokia. The latest real-time virus
threat scenario news are available at the F-Secure Data Security
Lab weblog at
http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/
For more information, please contact:
Mikko Hyppönen, Chief Research Officer
F-Secure Corporation
Tel. +358 400 648180
Email:
firstname.lastname@f-secure.com
