{"id":33,"date":"2006-01-04T19:15:08","date_gmt":"2006-01-05T03:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.11h.net\/blog\/?p=33"},"modified":"2006-01-04T19:15:08","modified_gmt":"2006-01-05T03:15:08","slug":"confirm-that-your-sitekey-is-correct","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/11h.net\/blog\/confirm-that-your-sitekey-is-correct\/","title":{"rendered":"Confirm that your SiteKey is correct"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bank of America just mandated this new &#8220;security feature&#8221; called SiteKey.  Apparently, it is to help reduce phishing attacks to the bank of America online banking website.  Well, since I just wasted 25 minutes of my time setting this thing up, I&#8217;m going to waste your time forcing you to read about it rather pointless &#8220;feature&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Essentially, the theory behind SiteKey is that you enter your &#8220;Online ID&#8221; on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.11h.net\/blog\/wp-admin\/www.bofa.com\">bofa.com<\/a> front page and hit the submit button.  If the server detects your browser, it will present you with a customizable picture and text that only Bank of America would know &#8230; that way you can quickly ensure you&#8217;re on a legitimate BofA website.  If your browser doesn&#8217;t have the SiteKey cookie, it will first ask you a personal question (like what is your mothers maiden name) before showing your SiteKey.  At this point you can enter your password and proceed as usual.<\/p>\n<p>A few things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How is this ANY different then me looking at my &#8220;Location&#8221; bar directly above the active webpage to make sure it says &#8220;bankofamerica.com&#8221;?  I suppose if I&#8217;m using a flawed browser that allows pages to manipulate that, I might be at risk.<\/li>\n<li>When I first signed up for Online Banking 6 years ago, the customer service rep made me use my <strong>Social Security Number<\/strong> as my &#8220;Online Id&#8221;.  I can only imagine how many other customers also use their SSN for their online id.  Knowing this information, a phishing website that creates a mock page that asks for *ONLY* an Onilne Id (making the user think they will see their SiteKey later, as usual) would already have enough information to begin further research for stealing someones identity.<\/li>\n<li>Why can&#8217;t I just upload my own picture?  They tout this as a &#8220;personal&#8221; thing&#8230; yet I have to browse from their collection of images?  When I was wasting my time selecting a SiteKey, I was determined to find a Red Stapler.  They let you choose images from a matrix, 6 per page.  The first page had a Pink stapler.  After several more pages I came across a Blue stapler, then Purple, then Green.  Finally, on page 240 after looking at over 1,440 images, I found an old-style Red Stapler to use as my SiteKey&#8230; not a swingline, but close enough. &#8230;  Oops &#8230; I shouldn&#8217;t have told anyone.  Dang.<\/li>\n<li>We already know people are idiots&#8230; I suspect that most people who will fall for a phishing attack will enter their userid and passcode on a phony website without even thinking about the SiteKey thing&#8230; i.e. they won&#8217;t <strong>remember<\/strong> about the importance of the SiteKey feature unless the website <strong>mentions<\/strong> it!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That last note is <em>especially<\/em> important when you consider this <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">rather serious<\/span> design flaw in Bank of America&#8217;s SiteKey as it is implemented at the time of this writing: If you visit bankofamerica.com on a browser without the SiteKey cookies (or cookies are disabled), <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">you are asked for both your <\/span>userid and passcode regardless! See screenshot:<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"SiteKey with no cookie\" id=\"image34\" title=\"SiteKey with no cookie\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/01\/sitekey-nocookie.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The funny thing is, even after I submit my Online ID and Passcode, it still asks for my SiteKey information, then my passcode again. What a waste of my time.<\/p>\n<p>Here is how it looks when you are using a browser the server recognizes with the proper cookies:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"SiteKey as it should be\" id=\"image35\" title=\"SiteKey as it should be\" src=\"\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2006\/01\/sitekey-withcookie.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Oh, one more thing:  SiteKey isn&#8217;t even implemented for WA or ID accounts, which are really old SeaFirst banks&#8230;. Whats worse?  The login page for those accounts ask for your checking account number, social security number in its entirety, and a password.  Every time.  You&#8217;d think that this many <span style=\"font-weight: bold\">years<\/span> later, this bank of &#8220;Higher Standards&#8221; would be able to integrate and upgrade their website for a consistant interface across the whole country.<\/p>\n<p>Wow, I sure feel secure now.  Thank you BofA for this enhanced (false) sense of security.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bank of America just mandated this new &#8220;security feature&#8221; called SiteKey. Apparently, it is to help reduce phishing attacks to the bank of America online banking website. Well, since I just wasted 25 minutes of my time setting this thing up, I&#8217;m going to waste your time forcing you to read about it rather pointless &#8220;feature&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Essentially, the theory behind SiteKey is that you enter your &#8220;Online ID&#8221; on the bofa.com front page and hit the submit button. If the server detects your browser, it will present you with a customizable picture and text that only Bank of America would know &#8230; that way you can quickly ensure you&#8217;re on <a href=\"https:\/\/11h.net\/blog\/confirm-that-your-sitekey-is-correct\/\">&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>[Continue reading]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/11h.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/11h.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/11h.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/11h.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/11h.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/11h.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/11h.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/11h.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/11h.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}