One bank in my town has stopped offering Internet banking, and suddenly I feel I can see the future post-phishing.
Of course, the bank is not saying it’s abandoning Internet banking. Nor is it saying that the fact that now customers have to dial into a modem in the bank to access their account is because of phishing. The message on the website merely says that to improve capability [sic] and security the bank is “undergoing improvement process to make the service even more convenience [sic] and reliable in the future. Therefore, temporarily please access internet banking through VPN (Virtual Private Network). We apologize for any inconvenience caused.”
It will be interesting to see how quickly the original service is resumed, and, if it is, what changes will have been made. But do we see a glimpse here of the kind of thing other banks may do? Might it just not be worth the hassle in future to offer Internet-based services?