Enhanced Security Framework for Internet Banking Services

Abstract

This research, Enhanced Security Framework for Internet Banking Services is aimed at developing a suitable framework, a system based on consolidating two algorithms, improved RSA with LSB steganography capable of providing secure transmission of customer Internet banking credentials as this is imperative since the online transactions are carried out using public networks that are vulnerable to varying forms of cyber threats and attacks on data confidentiality, integrity and authenticity. In conducting this research, a thorough analysis of the existing banking system used by most banks such as First bank, Stanbic IBTC and UBA, the FINACLE 10.8 and intellect(TM) PRIVACY security system used by POLARIS bank was carried out in order to ascertain the existing security features while at the same time, reviewing the existing, current Internet banking security models in a bid to concretely establish the gaps filled by this research. The data gathered for this research were collected using the key informant interview method (KIIM), visiting banks IT unit and observation of operational procedures and other technicalities as regards Internet security. Lecture notes, newsletters and journal articles relating to Internet banking security were thoroughly reviewed. It was however found that the existing applications were unable to stop offline credential stealing attacks, were also vulnerable to malicious attacks when credentials are stored on customer PCs. Hence, the use of steganography in this research to consolidate cryptographic algorithms (beginning from the use of PKI-cards on card readers). In building the system, the OOAD approach was used with tools such as Class Diagram, Sequence Diagram, DFDs, and UML use cases to capture the system functionalities in a bid to come up with a successful design. MATLAB R2015a was used to process images imported from JAVA platform and analysis carried out on five (5) standard gray USC-SIPI images of size 512 × 512tiff formats as data sets selected to conceal customer data after encryption by the RSA technique yielding very high PSNR and very low MSE values as required for a secure credential transmission.