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Re: [LUG] Banking trojan targeting Linux

 

On 09/08/13 16:53, Martijn Grooten wrote:
On Fri, 9 Aug 2013, Neil Winchurst wrote:
All this has been interesting and worrying. I have come across
something called Tor Project. This seems to be a secure browser
system. About the only thing I am worried about on the internet is on
line banking. If I used the Tor browser to access my bank would that
be safer?

Not significantly so.

TL;DR Tor doesn't provide the kind of security you want for safely using
online banking.

Using Tor to connect to your bank's website means that your ISP can't
figure out that you're connecting to said website. Nor can the bank
determine where it is that you're connecting from. And for third
parties, such as law enforcement agencies, it's pretty damn hard to
figure out that you've been connecting to them.

But I can't think of a situation where this would be useful. To do
anything on the bank's website, you need to authenticate, and this
likely authenticates you as a person (rather than as an Internet user)
given that you must have opened the account once by going to a branch.
If you're doing something illegal, it's pretty easy for LEAs to obtain
all details of the transactions from the bank.

It may even be that your bank blocks access from the Tor network as it
could well be a sign of malicious activity.

Martijn.


I have done a quick test. I was able to log on to my account and look at the details without any apparent problems. So, if that is not a good idea, I must look elsewhere.

Neil

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