H Ramus

Some countries are all-in on the digital transition and for a lot of things shops don’t even accept cash anymore. Digital QR code transfers are preferred. Be thankful that the banks that you deal with haven’t gone down this path.

2 factor TOTP exists and is secure enough for corporates to have adopted long time ago. Banks can adopt similar authentication methods but choose not to.

On the OP, not sure what the solution could be. However, going down this path seems flawed.

In a lot of counties banks are becoming mobile first. Want to login in the browser? Authenticate with your mobile app to approve. Don’t have a mobile phone with the requisites of the bank? Well, go to the branch, take a ticket, wait and then tell them what you want to do with your money. It’s not just about paying, banks are moving online authentication to be dependent on Google or Apple, whatever poison you pick.

This seems like same shit different flies. Still dependent on some centralised approval which doesn’t help openness and security. We need alternatives to the duopoly but this ain’t it, chief.

I can’t take any Microsoft attempt at security seriously. One of the most important elements to improve security is to delete windows. Secure boot is lots of things but not secure.

Gives the illusion of security without being secure. Get the drive in a separate machine and, unless encrypted, secure boot is security theatre. Windows login password is similarly useless when the drive can be accessed when attached elsewhere.

Get rid of secure boot, install a granny-safe Linux distribution like Mint and get your drive LUKS encrypted.