{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.025868725868725868, 'fraction_numerical': 0.003088803088803089, 'mean_word_length': 4.8487584650112865, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Secure User Authentication in Internet Banking: A Qualitative Survey

—A qualitative survey of user identification mechanisms being applied in online banking environments across the English speaking world is presented. By studying the Internet banking sites of most major banks in 7 countries, the paper reports the variations and calls for standardisation of user credentials in these environments. I INTRODUCTION Internet based technologies have revolutionised the banking industry as well as way people interact with financial institution and one another financially. However, it has raised new questions and dimensions for securing data of the financial institutions as well as the end-users. In this paper, we raise the oft-repeated question of security in online banking systems, which have been extensively studied from technological, sociological, financial and other points of views. [1]-[7]. Security covers a large spectrum of activity in banking. At one end of this spectrum is the back-end security infrastructure being applied at the banking institutions to secure their databases and servers. Somewhere in between are the encryption based security features which ensure the safety and security of data transmission between the bank and the end-user. The other end of the spectrum is the end-user him/herself. A major concern of every bank is the proper authentication of its end-user in a secure environment. The end-user is also concerned that no one else should be able to access his account [3], [8]. In this paper, we study this end of the spectrum; more specifically, we study the identification mechanism in online banking systems. For any non-personal transaction, the bank has to verify the identification of the end-user, and hence in an online environment has to trust some form of digital identity to know its customer. More importantly, it has to ensure that the form of identity has not been tampered with. Several solutions have been suggested and are being used by banks across the globe to verify the identity of its customers [2]. In this paper, we survey these features; however, we limit ourselves to the features in use in various banks and discard the ones proposed only in technical literature [1], [9]. The second section of the paper provides the methodology of our qualitative study. The third section followed by a description of the identification credentials being used by the banks. The fourth section of the paper discusses the way in which these login credentials are sought. Finally, a discussion is provided at the end of the paper. II DATA …