Barclays fights phishing with smart bank cards, readers
London-based Barclays Bank has turned to a smart card solution from Gemalto to protect its customers who use the bank’s online services. They are provided a one-time access number for each online transaction.
The number is generated by the chip on the customer’s bank card and displayed on the card reader, known as PINsentry. Once a customer enters his permanent PIN, the system generates the password that serves as a digital signature.
According to one bank official, phishing attacks have “decreased dramatically” since the smart card readers were deployed even while such attacks have reached an all-time high for the UK banking industry.
Barclays first started using the $9 readers in 2007 for about 800,000 customers who made payments online. But then other customers began requesting them and now more than two million are in use.
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