Intellia's innovation in bank account security for online banking
Prior to June 2005 online banking required merely a user name and password to log on to the bank customers bank account.
The method of username and password logon was insufficient to protect New Zealand banks and their bank customers from having their money stolen out of their bank accounts.
Methods like keystroke loggers, and general snooping into the private data of individuals were used during the period of 1995-2005 to steal hundreds of millions of dollars out of New Zealand bank accounts.
In most cases of these forms of hacking, private and commercial bank account holders were unaware that any sums of money went missing, as New Zealand banks were quick to cover the account shortfalls. Banks covered up the thefts occuring out of bank customers accounts because they did not want to be embarrassed if it were to become public knowledge that money can and did go missing out of bank customers accounts. It was vital to retain consumer trust in online banking as online banking is a labour cost-saving over the traditional over-the-counter banking method.
Intellia Ltd changed all this overnight. Intellia with the help of a reputable Auckland based law firm approached New Zealand banks with evidence of widespread hacking conducted by an organized crime ring, targeting New Zealanders bank accounts and New Zealand banks. Intellia's director innovated the 'date and time stamp', and this innovation was promptly implemented by all New Zealand banks, starting with the ASB and subsequently adopted by all other banks operating online banking in New Zealand. Indeed the 'date and time stamp' is now applied universally by banks all over the world for online banking.
Featured below is an example of what bank account holders nowadays see after they logon to their online bank accounts, the 'date and time stamp'.
Hackers used to regularly or randomly check the online bank account balances of their targeted victims, every logon was 'not' recorded and therefore hackers could logon as many times as they wished to check the bank balances of their victims. The 'date and time stamp' provides the user with information as to when the user (or hacker) last logged on to the account, when the last account transaction took place, and in some instances depending on the bank providing the online banking service additional information. Banks further strengthened their online banking security using a variety of 'user invisible' security mechanisms, in addition to the date and time stamp. While the engineering of a date and time stamp feature, the basic invention was not new pre-2005, the innovative use of it for online banking has since protected billions of bank account holders.
