Banks should shift from password-based authentication to digital certificates and digital signatures to help prevent financial fraud, said Badrul Hisham Mahari, chief executive officer of MSC Trustgate.com.

In a recent press briefing, he said forgery and fraud-based spam were the fastest-growing Internet threats.

However, local banks still rely on traditional PINs (personal identification numbers) and passwords for online banking, which Badrul described as inadequate for ensuring Internet banking security.

While local banks currently use server certificates, they have yet to embrace digital certificates (sometimes referred to as browser certificates, personal certificates or digital IDs).

Server certificates allow websites to encrypt webpages, but that is not enough as it provides no proof of the identity of the sender of the encrypted information, Badrul said.

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