Secure Online Banking by Using IBM ZTIC

A new device, the ZTIC (Zone Trusted Information Channel), has been developed by IBM to secure online banking. The ZTIC is the size of USB flash drive and it does connect to a computer using the USB port. The ZTIC was designed to make internet banking more secure by using the TLS/SSL authentication protocol. This means that the user can connect directly to the bank site that it is trying to access bypassing any software from the computer thus making key loggers useless.

The ZTIC can be connected and installed in a computer directly with no device driver required. It will show up as a USB mass storage device, just like any flash drive, and it will use a “pass through” proxy which will connect only to preconfigured banking web sites. With this configuration all data that are transmitted from the computer and the bank’s server pass through the ZTIC which has protected SSL session since the keys for the SSL is maintained in the ZTIC itself and not on the PC. So again, malwares that might be on the PC cannot access the ongoing transaction. As an added feature, the users can view in the display the critical information that passes between the browser and the server and needs the user’s explicit confirmation, by pressing the “ok” button, to confirm the transaction. So if there any are altered information, the user can simply deny the transaction.

Source: Tech Fragments