Carrying a physical, wallet-sized security card may be the next step in keeping your online banking secure, according to one Australian tech expert.
Stopping cybercrime and protecting your personal banking information is becoming harder each day, as scammers and cyber criminals improve their methods.
Combating this criminal activity has become almost impossible, and now an Australian tech expert is calling for a return to physical security cards in the face of the online crime wave.
Daniel Elbaum is the Melbourne-based tech expert who invented the mobile wireless EFTPOS system back in the 1990s, and is the founder and CEO of cybersecurity technology firm VeroGuard.
VeroGuard has developed the VeroCard, which the company describes as a “multifactor authentication device the size of a business card. It offers the “same level of protection as a bank transaction during online use”.
The electronic card is able to store your passwords for you, as well as act as a two-factor authentication (2FA) method that is separate from your phone. The card then acts as a secure link between all your online logins and payments.
Mr Elbaum told the Australian Financial Review the device has already been adopted by the defence force and intelligence agencies and that he expects it will soon replace both passwords and credit cards.
“Medibank, Latitude, Optus, [those incidents] are all based on an ID breach that lets you come in and take over the system,” he said.
“Until a year ago, everybody said we’ve got one hardware [a smartphone] let’s use this for everything.
“Now everybody is moving back to hardware and in three years you effectively won’t be able to log in online without [extra] hardware, I can guarantee you.”
Last year in Australia there were more than 76,000 cybercrime reports made to the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) with the average loss of each report around $39,000.
But Professor Nigel Phair, cybercrime expert at Monash University, told Nine News he doesn’t think consumers will adopt the VeroCard widely, as most people are reluctant to carry another piece of equipment.
“We carry a mobile device for a reason, not to carry anything else with it,” he said.
“People don’t like friction when it comes to logging on to anything and anything external to the device.
“I just don’t think will get traction in society.”
Would you be willing to carry the VeroCard in your pocket? Would it make you feel safer? Let us know in the comments section below.
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