would you supply your bank with your HD

[somanyholes]

Interesting thought provoking article. I'm pretty sure most of you wouldn't however it does make you wonder what would happen if you refused their request.

http://blog.trigeo.com/2010/grandma-got-hacked-for-christmas/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+trigeosphere+%28TriGeoSphere%29

[Rik]

That's certainly thought-provoking, So. My first instinct would be to refuse, at least until sufficient guarantees were in place.

[john]

It seems to be an unusal request, certainly I've never heard of a bank requesting the HD. It doesn't necessarily prove anything either way, you could give them a cleaned up drive or a completely different drive. They would also leave themselves open to accusations that they had installed something that rules in their favour i.e if you didn't have some dodgy software that could have caused the problem before then they could install it and then blame it on you. Also you would have to give them your password including any admin ones.

[Rik]

I agree, John, the only way for it to work would be to have an accredited forensic lab do the testing.

[somanyholes]

They would also leave themselves open to accusations that they had installed something that rules in their favour i.e if you didn't have some dodgy software that could have caused the problem before then they could install it and then blame it on you.

It does make you wonder that if a large fraudulent transaction occurred on your account if they would be more likely to go down this route so that the account holder would bear the cost if they could prove it was the account holders fault.

My bank offers the Rapport software to customer's, It's persistant in trying to get me to install it. As i haven't installed it if my account was to get compromised I have wondered if they would try and use it against me.

[Rik]

More than likely, So.

[Gary]

The thing is with banks now saying use our accredited antivirus or with NatWest Rapport thingy, then if you don't have it on your computers drive, they could I suppose say, "no we wont pay out" or if you have no protection and lets face some don't then a bit like smoking related diseases, its your fault so why should they help, tbh I find it very disturbing and no way would they get my HD

[john]

I suppose as a compromise you could buy another cheap as possible PC (even a flattened and rebuilt second hand one) and just use it only for on-line banking.

[Technical Ben]

Are you suppose to put bullet proof glass and a tank manned by a German shepherd outside your house to protect against thieves? No.
If you do all reasonably in your power to prevent fraud then I am sure the bank will help. However some institutes are starting to back out of every claim, by finding loopholes (similar to the life insurance companies who cancel your claim because you stubbed your toe and forgot to tell them).
Also, a polite letter to a Director or complaints department can work wonders for your case.
Perhaps their techies just wanted to check the virus to see if they could stop it in the future? The online banking account could ask different questions, or use different type passwords if they found one was easy to crack.