Enhancing Remote User Security in Banking Through Firewalls

Last December, a bank in Southern California received a call from an online customer asking why one of the bank's computers was trying to hack into his system. It turned out that the machine doing the hacking belonged to the bank's . . . Last December, a bank in Southern California received a call from an online customer asking why one of the bank's computers was trying to hack into his system. It turned out that the machine doing the hacking belonged to the bank's president and had been remotely commandeered by an employee. The president called Conqwest Inc., a Holliston, Mass.-based IT security services firm, which is now rolling out firewall software across the bank's 125 internal desktop, laptop and remote computers.

Until recently, companies thought antivirus and virtual private network (VPN) technologies would keep remote worker connections safe. But as more workers have been accessing the Internet through broadband services such as cable modems, exposure to hacking attacks through those machines has increased. In October, for example, a hacker broke into a Microsoft Corp. employee's home computer and exploited the VPN connection to penetrate the company's internal network.

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