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is it alright to do online banking with a MacBook Pro?

Is it safe to do online banking with MacBook Pro?


MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 11.5

Posted on Sep 16, 2021 11:26 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Sep 16, 2021 1:10 PM

Look at the URL line once you have logged into your bank's site. It should show a locked-lock icon. You can click on that lock and it will reveal the certificate chain used for the encryption to secure everything end-to-end coming and going.


Only current, valid, verifiable certificates are allowed without an error message and a blank screen complaining "not secure".


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My bank was pushing an Anti-Virus package. I called them and said, "If you cannot provide secure banking WITHOUT this package, I am closing my account!"


They apologized and said it was already very secure, but "many of their customers wanted additional protection." Then they revealed what I had suspected all along, that this was a money-maker for the bank.

9 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Sep 16, 2021 1:10 PM in response to 2021newPhoto

Look at the URL line once you have logged into your bank's site. It should show a locked-lock icon. You can click on that lock and it will reveal the certificate chain used for the encryption to secure everything end-to-end coming and going.


Only current, valid, verifiable certificates are allowed without an error message and a blank screen complaining "not secure".


--------

My bank was pushing an Anti-Virus package. I called them and said, "If you cannot provide secure banking WITHOUT this package, I am closing my account!"


They apologized and said it was already very secure, but "many of their customers wanted additional protection." Then they revealed what I had suspected all along, that this was a money-maker for the bank.

Sep 16, 2021 5:47 PM in response to 2021newPhoto

I find when I write a paper check to a big company, they turn it into a check-image and process it electronically.


So if they are going to throw away my good paper check and use an electronic transfer, I may as well use my bank's Check Free electronic payment system and save a stamp. It is encrypted end-to-end and "payments guaranteed".


Credit and debit cards are using electrons and the internet to make payments daily.


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In 1970, the president of Sperry Rand (once a big computer company) said, essentially "there aren't enough people alive in the world today to do the work of the small number of Computers in the United States alone."


That predates the personal computer by about a decade and a half.


Your friend who says electronic banking is not safe is still living in the Dark Ages.


Sep 16, 2021 6:31 PM in response to 2021newPhoto

This discussion is predicated on your running MacOS 10.9 or later.


In 2015, researchers discovered that the method of doing encryption in common use world-wide was not as secure as they thought. Over the next months it was deprecated, and over the next years it was completely replaced with a more secure encryption method.


Executive summary: You must be running MacOS 10.9 or later to do modern encryption appropriate for online banking. if your Mac is older, you cannot make the secure connection required. its not in-secure. It simply won't work.

is it alright to do online banking with a MacBook Pro?

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