The growth of online security threats has led more Australian banks partner with software vendors to offer free security suites for customers as a means of minimising risk.
In the latest example the Commonwealth Bank has signed a partnership with McAfee month to offer 5.5 million customers who use its online banking service, NetBank, an Internet security package.
The offering includes active protection, enterprise anti-spam, anti-virtus and anti-spyware, two way firewall protection, anti phishing and two way firewall protection.
Commonwealth Bank ANZ director for consumer sales, Monica Kelly, said in a statement that it has seen strong growth in the volume and sophistication of threats with 55,000 new samples of malware detected every day.
"Consumers must have adequate security protection to allow them to combat emerging threats to ensure their personal information and identity is not compromised,” she said.
Some of the deals offered to users include free internet security to ward off spyware and stave off attacks from botnet programmes written to target banks such as Zeus , which went underground after arrests in the US and UK late last year.
The Commonwealth joins Westpac, which earlier this year signed a deal with PC Tools to offer its online banking customers 12 months' free use spyware, antispyware, antivirus, firewall plus and spam protection tools.
Westpac and the Commonwealth's offerings will help protect users from an increasing number of spyware and botnet programs, such as Zeus, specifically written to target banks. Zeus was designed to evade security software and grab online banking details.
The National Australia Bank, ANZ and St George were contacted for comment but did not responded at the time of writing.
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