Bank Security: Firebombing over Vancouver Olympics, U.S. Pushes for Better Online Fraud Protection

It seems like Canadian anarchists don’t want to shake off the Vancouver Olympic Games. Just days ago, a group claimed responsibility for a firebomb attack in Ottawa on the country’s largest commercial bank, and is threatening to disrupt next month’s G8 and G20 summits in Ontario. In a statement after the attack, a self-proclaimed group of anarchists said the Royal Bank was targeted because it was a sponsor of the Vancouver Olympic Games, which the group claims was held on stolen indigenous land. They also say the Royal is a major backer of Alberta’s tar sands, which they describe as one of the most destructive industrial projects in human history. The statement was posted on a Web site along with a video showing the attack on the bank. The group has vowed to take their protest to Ontario for the G8 and G20 summits, where they say decisions will be made to further exploit people and the environment.

A panel of regulators in the U.S. are drafting plans to force banks to protect their customers better from a surge in online account fraud. According to a report in the Financial Times (FT), a panel with representatives from the FDIC, the Federal Reserve System and other agencies is reacting to the rapid evolution of malicious computer programs designed to drain accounts. Among its plans is to require financial institutions to contact customers through means beside the Internet, following European banks actions in placing calls to clients’ mobile phones to ensure that they intend to transfer money. The FT report also claimed that banks were warned in 2005 not to rely merely on user names and static passwords, which has led to U.S. institutions adopting two-factor authentication for big depositors. However, directives from the FDIC and others have allowed banks to skip that step if they had multiple layers of security checks to flag suspicious money movement.

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