Improved Banking Security [closed]

I am looking at ways to tighten my PC or Mac security with regard to banking and other financial activities.

One solution is to have a device (laptop, PC) that is used exclusively for those activities (no other internet activity) and the device is turned off when not in use.

However it occurred to me that booting to Ubuntu from a USB drive and then using the USB stick exclusively for banking/finance may offer a great security solution for very little cost.

It seems to me that the same isolation security may hold true when booting Ubuntu from Virtualbox - although the PC would not be turned off in a dual boot situation the operating systems would be isolated.

Where are the holes in my thinking?

What are some other ideas for keeping today's very sophisticated cyber-criminals at bay.

Thank you for any feedback you may provide. Cheers

2 Answers

Banking security is pretty sophisticated. Most of the available holes are on your end. For instance, storing your passwords for your banking site on your system is likely a bad idea unless you keep your computer in a vault. You might want to avoid banking over wireless (especially public wifi which isn't typically encrypted to the level available on private wifi) to avoid broadcasting encrypted data (which could possibly be decrypted). I would consider the combination of login and security questions along with the other security features (which differ slightly from bank to bank) to be sufficient.

Does your bank not have two-factor authentication? Most nowadays have a keypad you need a code from to access the banking. Other than that, man in the middle attacks are the main concern as far as I see it.