Re: Is Keychain or any other program safe for storing sensitive data on a desktop Mac?

From	Your Name <YourName@YourISP.com>
Newsgroups	comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject	Re: Is Keychain or any other program safe for storing sensitive data on a desktop Mac?
Date	2018-11-17 14:21 +1300
Organization	Aioe.org NNTP Server
Message-ID	<psnqe8$2bj$1@gioia.aioe.org> (permalink)
References	<2018111512335155297-tomevans9890@yahoo.ca> <psl6ba$1sma$1@gioia.aioe.org> <2018111519094870922-tomevans9890@yahoo.ca>

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On 2018-11-16 03:09:48 +0000, Tom Evans said:
> On 2018-11-16 01:26:04 +0000, Your Name said:
>> On 2018-11-15 20:33:51 +0000, Tom Evans said:
>>> On 2018-11-08 22:10:58 +0000, nospam said:
>>>> In article <2018110813514766717-tomevans9890@yahoo.ca>, Tom Evans
>>>> <tomevans9890@yahoo.ca> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> The reason I asked if Keychain is safe is because a robber tried
>>>>> (unsuccessfully) to steal $1,700 from one of my credit cards by calling
>>>>> my bank and impersonating me yesterday.  The bank employee I spoke with
>>>>> after the bank alerted me said that the thief knew my security
>>>>> questions that were asked of him.
>>>> 
>>>> likely because you gave real answers to the insecurity questions.
>>>> 
>>>> most of those are public information, such as what was your first car,
>>>> or can be easily determined with a bit of digging, such as what street
>>>> you grew up on or who was your 1st grade teacher.
>>> 
>>> That's false.
>>> 
>>> My bank and credit card information is not publicly available.  When 
>>> customers call VISA or my bank regarding my account, the employee asks 
>>> security screening questions such as what was the dollar amount of a 
>>> late transaction in one of my accounts, what my phone code is that I 
>>> use for phoning the bank, what one of my account number is, if a 
>>> particular account is joint or single and what my credit limit is in a 
>>> particular account, or how many accounts I have and how many accounts 
>>> are credit accounts and how many are debit accounts.
>> <snip>
>> 
>> But those "security questions" are usually worthless.
>> 
>> For example, they ask things like your mother's maiden name, which is 
>> easily found out from birth records once the hacker has your name, date 
>> of birth, and where you were born from you entering it into something 
>> like a fictitious survey or competition entry form.
> 
> No; VISA and my bank are not so stupid.  As I already explained, they 
> DO NOT ask any such questions that could be found by criminals 
> searching public records.
> 
> As I already explained, when customers call VISA or my bank regarding 
> my account, the employee asks security screening questions such as what 
> was the dollar amount of a late transaction in one of my accounts, what 
> my phone code is that I use for phoning the bank, what one of my 
> account number is, if a particular account is joint or single and what 
> my credit limit is in a particular account, or how many accounts I have 
> and how many accounts are credit accounts and how many are debit 
> accounts.

Those are potentially even worse than the standard bank "security" 
questions. Anyone who already has your online banking password could 
easily just look up such answers.

At least with the "mother's maiden name" type of questions the scammer 
has to put a bit more effort into finding the answers.

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