Cyberwar claims first victims in Belgian Internet banking.

Recent media reports that hacking gangs had succeeded in plucking the bank accounts of Internet banking customers of at least three significant banks in Belgium have sent ripples through banking and investor circles.

First indications suggest that a Russian criminal gang may have been responsible for the hackings that have caused at least 15 clients to have suffered considerable losses.

Although the hackings had been conducted in May 2007 already, banks were reluctant to release details. One of the major banks now denies that its systems had been hacked and suggests that the problem may lie with the lack of proper security on clients' own computers.

Fact remains that the security and confidentiality of banking networks have been shown to be vulnerable and according to research conducted by Belgian IT security company, Scanit, the problem may well lie with the reliability of the security provisions of major Internet browsers such as Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera.

Insecure browsers open the doors for viruses, theft of personal data and hacking; allowing hackers easier access to create platforms from which to attack banks or other commercial institutions. So far in 2007 Microsoft has released 15 critical security updates for bugs exploitable over the web in Internet Explorer and other Microsoft software and Mozilla has released seven for Firefox.

www.scanit.be