"They're very outdated," said Gartner's Litan, who has had an opportunity to review updated FFIEC guidelines in draft form. The revised FFIEC document admits just that, according to Litan: "They say very clearly in there that things have changed a lot since 2005, and that the security controls that are in place already are not working."
The Experi-Metal case, on the other hand, underscores how courts can interpret relatively similar cases quite differently. In January 2009, an Experi-Metal executive forwarded an email that appeared to be from Comerica to the company's controller. The email included a link to complete a "Comerica Business Connect Customer Form." The controller clicked on the link and entered his complete credentials for Experi-Metal's accounts--giving hackers unfettered access to the company's cash.
Over the next six-and-a-half hours, the scammers initiated 97 wire transfers totaling more than $1.9 million, sending the money to offshore accounts in Russia, Estonia, and China. Comerica's fraud procedures eventually kicked into gear and the bank recovered more than $1.3 million before it disappeared; the criminals still made off with $561,399.
The judge found in favor of Experi-Metal and ruled Comerica must make up the difference. But unlike in the Patco case, the decision wasn't based on FFIEC guidelines or the notion of reasonable security. In fact, the judge said that issue wasn't grounds for a case, because Experi-Metal's contract with Comerica effectively said the company approved of the bank's technology and practices at the time.
Rather, the ruling hinged on a complicated legal argument based on whether or not the bank had acted in "good faith" in accepting the wire transfer requests. Ultimately, the court decided Comerica had not done enough to prevent the fraud, based on factors including the volume and frequency of the wire transfer activity, the destinations and beneficiaries ("individuals, many with Russian-sounding names," the court document reads) of the payments, Experi-Metal's scant prior wire activity (just two authorized transfers in 2007), Experi-Metal's past online activity patterns, and Comerica's prior knowledge of phishing activity (it had been alerted the day prior of phishing campaign targeting its customers). In the court ruling, the judge wrote: "This trier of fact is inclined to find that a bank dealing fairly with its customer, under these circumstances, would have detected and/or stopped the fraudulent wire activity earlier."
The different outcomes of the two cases point to the lack of clear answers for how these kinds of security breaches should be handled when they do occur.
"It speaks to the complexity of the issue, and I would expect to see varying judgments to some degree continue as the industry really tries to shake out what the precedents are and how to look at this," said Reilly of Guardian Analytics.
Gartner's Litan notes that business accounts are not covered by the laws that provide stronger protections to consumers. She's an advocate of legislative reform to give SMB accounts a better backstop in the event of fraud, but she doesn't sound optimistic that will happen any time soon. Short of that, she thinks smaller businesses will continue to be victimized by online crime, and without any straightforward means for recouping losses.
"In the end, businesses are guilty until proven innocent," Litan said. In her view, the only real safeguards for businesses are fairly drastic: Either don't use online banking, or only use a dedicated, locked-down PC to access your accounts. Even then, Litan believes the bad guys will ultimately find ways to infiltrate SMBs.
Reilly of Guardian Analytics recommends that companies closely read their banking agreements, particularly the sections pertaining to online account security. She also thinks it's the banks, not their business customers, that are best suited to combat threats.
"There are just so many ways that the criminals can attack those end users, that I don't think it's reasonable for the businesses to protect themselves," Reilly said. "The banks are in the best position to do that."
Smith, AVG's chief executive, said smart SMBs should still employ strong security practices no matter how strong their bank's protections are. That doesn't just mean running an anti-malware program, but educating employees on risks and best practices to avoid threats predicated on human error, such as phishing or social engineering attacks. Otherwise, the best technology in the world might not be enough.
Or, as Smith puts it: "If they've got your username and password, what can the bank do about that?"
[Editor's note: On Tuesday, the FFIEC published a supplement to its "2005 Authentication in an Internet Banking Environment" guidelines. In a statement, the joint federal agency said, "The purpose of the supplement is to reinforce the risk-management framework described in the original guidance and update the FFIEC member agencies' supervisory expectations regarding customer authentication, layered security, and other controls in the increasingly hostile online environment." The full supplement is available here.]
Small and midsize businesses are falling prey to cyberattacks that cost them sensitive data, productivity, and corporate accounts cleaned out by sophisticated banking Trojans. In this report, we explain what makes these threats so menacing, and share best practices to defend against them. Download it now. (Free registration required.)