Bank beefs up user authentication

Alliance & Leicester to introduce further online security

Alliance & Leicester plans to cut financial fraud and identity theft by becoming the first UK bank to provide all of its one million internet banking customers with two-factor authentication.

Customers of the UK’s seventh largest bank will be able to use the security technology to prove to the bank that they are who they say they are and not an internet criminal who could have stolen personal log-in details through a phishing scam.

The two-factor authentication technology will also be used to prove to internet banking customers that they are accessing Alliance & Leicester’s genuine web site, rather than a spoof one set up by cyber criminals to fool users into entering their details.

‘We are delivering an improved security process, using a form of second factor authentication, providing a simple and robust way for all of our internet banking customers to be confident that they are dealing with Alliance & Leicester online,’ said a spokesman for the bank.

Alliance & Leicester declined to provide further technical details about the scheme, but says that the launch is imminent.

Forrester Research believes security fears have prevented more than 600,000 UK internet users from banking online (Computing, 8 September).

Banking industry group Apacs has announced a security standard for a device to physically authenticate online transactions, and Lloyds TSB is piloting a keyring-sized device with 30,000 UK internet banking customers.

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