Feds Warn Small Businesses to Use Dedicated PC for Online Banking

From Wired

In the wake of a rash of hacks on computers owned by small businesses, the FBI and the American Banking Association have issued an alert advising businesses to use only a dedicated PC for online banking, according to USA Today.

The alert was issued after numerous small businesses, universities and local governments have been targeted by hackers who installed keystroke loggers on their machines to steal banking credentials and siphon millions of dollars from their bank accounts.

The alert advises businesses to dedicate a single computer for online banking activity that is never used for reading e-mail or surfing anywhere else on the web. Using a dedicated computer would lessen the chance of the computer being infected with malware that can help crooks drain a bank account through wire transfers and automated clearinghouse transfers.

This is a good idea, but I think the chance that a business or home user can accomplish this is too low. I suggest that they get a Live CD of Ubuntu and boot directly from the CD/DVD. As it runs from read only media you can be certain that it's always a clean system. You may need to download or buy updated CD/DVD's though, but one every 6 months to a year should be fine.