Dave Jevans, chairman of the Anti-Phishing Working Group (and chairman of security vendor IronKey) has urged banks to take advantage of the immediacy of Twitter and other social media to send fraud alerts, as was done recently by Westpac in Australia:
According to the blog:
“Westpac… made good use of social media yesterday. The bank tweeted a scam alert warning of a fraudulent email that purports to advise Westpac customers to download a new security program. The email message was a fake, and its attachment carried a Trojan download, not real security software, the bank said in their tweet alert.”
The Net Security blog also outlines Jevans’s five suggested guidelines for the use of Twitter in such circumstances, based on clear and authenticated identification of the sender, and speedy response to threats.
Mercator has provided guidance for banks and financial firms considering the use of Twitter in the April 2011 report, “Twitter Among Large Banks: Still At the Learning Stage.”