Bank brings in security auditors to probe crack claims
PricewaterhouseCoopers will audit the security of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia's NetBank online banking operations after allegations part of its online banking system was open to compromise. A bank spokesman said today it was taking seriously media comments from what it identified as a former information technology employee of bookkeeping software maker Reckon that the bank's QuickLine small business banking software, used by about 50,000 bank customers, was open to exploits.
Reckon makes QuickBooks, software that is used in the QuickLine application supported by NetBank.
The spokesman said its Internet banking service had not been cracked or breached. However, he said PricewaterhouseCoopers had been asked by the bank to look into the claims.
"The vulnerabilities that have been reported are not vulnerabilities of the Net banking system. It's probably fair to say that the vulnerabilities surround it (the NetBank system).
"There is no evidence to suggest that our system has been hacked or breached by any computer hackers."
He said the bank was focusing its investigation on the client side of the banking interface as a part of its inquiry into the claims.
The spokesman said the issue of the potential security vulnerability had been raised by the former Reckon employee about six months ago "and it is our understanding at that the time it was addressed and the judgement made as to whether the issue warranted examination".
"Whether what he has reported six months ago and what he's reported now are the same issues is something that we're examining quite closely at the moment.
"The fact that the issues have been raised again means that we will look at it again. It may mean that the environment itself has changed and we need to apply different agents on which the information is provided."
The spokesman said the idea of robbing banks electronically was not a new one.
"We're a bank. Ever since the days of Ned Kelly people have been trying to rob us," he said. "We try and have a preventative security model for our security."
