In the unlikely event readers needed another reason to doubt the efficacy of the sitekeys that Bank of America, Yahoo and others claim make their sites more secure, a muck-raking hacker has demonstrated a simple means of thwarting the measure. The demo comes courtesy of Christopher Soghoian, the Indiana University graduate student whose online generator for spoofed airline boarding passes attracted considerable attention from the FBI.

Sitekeys, which financial institutions have embraced as a way of thwarting phishing attacks, allow customers to select an easily recognizable image that is displayed on login pages. A page that asks for password but doesn't show the image can immediately be pegged as a forgery. Or so the thinking goes.

At The Register.

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