Best live cd for online banking.

martin57

Hi folks,

As I already have a windows partition for online banking (dual boot computer) and have to restart to boot into it for online banking, I am thinking of doing it instead with a live cd.

so a few questions if I may,

1 Is this a reliable and secure way of banking, I won't be reading email or anything so no worries about clicking on links on email.

2 What is the quickest live cd to boot, I am connected by Ethernet to desktop. One person in an online review mentioned puppy Linux so your thoughts on that?

3 Do you think that the inbuilt browser on live cd would support most of the banking sites software so that I can gain access?

4 Do you think banks would take a dim view of banking this way if things were to go wrong, or look on it as a very secure way to bank online with them?

Thanks for any help regarding this.

Martin57

closed

You could probably count the number of people who feel it's necessary to use a live cd (or even a different partition) specifically for internet banking on one hand.

Gyro

You could also probably achieve similar ends by using the free 'Sandboxie' to run your browser Sandboxed while accessing the bank site - then deleting the Sandbox and all its contained files when you've finished.

http://www.sandboxie.com/

I also use the free 'Eraser' to wipe the Sandbox rather than just dump/delete the files onto the HDD free space.

If you want to save any of the files in the Sandbox you can also scan them while they're in there before bringing them out.

I've deliberately visited sites that have been infected by script kiddy foolishness and had pop-ups saying 'YOU'VE BEEN HACKED' etc = but I've just wiped the infected Sandbox later without problem.

henm2

Live CDs can be useful for all sorts of things but mainly good for trying out Linux distros and also for recovery purposes such as rescuing windows files and documents.

They are a bit OTT in my opinion for internet banking.

Here is a link to a list of live CDs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_live_CDs.

My recommendations for live CD purposes would be Puppex (based on Puppy Linux) PuppEX http://linux.exton.net/content/new-version-puppex-puppy-linux-ready
Also Zorin lite http://zorin-os.com/lite.html
Also Peppermint 4 http://peppermintos.com/
You can also put them on a USB flash drive and boot from that. Plenty of utilities enable you to do just that.
Is your dual boot system by any chance a windows/linux dual boot? If so just boot in the linux side for banking. Perfectly safe and no need for a live distro.

Also most banks nowadays use Two-step verification such as use of card readers and 'secure keys' when logging in so this makes it safer still even if using windows.

esuhl

Slax is my favourite live Linux distro. It's really fast, easy-to-use and most useful apps are pre-installed. You can boot it from a CD or USB key.

http://www.slax.org/

martin57 wrote: »

1 Is this a reliable and secure way of banking, I won't be reading email or anything so no worries about clicking on links on email.

It's probably a lot more secure than using Windows because most malware won't run, Linux has a better security model, and by booting from a read-only medium you can be fairly confident that your system won't be infected when you boot up as any malware won't be able to write to the system and will be deleted from memory when you shut down.

The only downside with live CDs is that you'll have to keep downloading and burning the latest image to ensure the web browser, etc. are kept patched and up-to-date, although if you are only using trusted sites this probably isn't too much of a problem.

martin57 wrote: »

3 Do you think that the inbuilt browser on live cd would support most of the banking sites software so that I can gain access?

Yes -- I would expect so.

martin57 wrote: »

4 Do you think banks would take a dim view of banking this way if things were to go wrong, or look on it as a very secure way to bank online with them?

So long as you're using up-to-date software, banks shouldn't take a dim view of it -- it's your computer and it's none of their business what OS you're running! They'll probably consider it more secure (although their call centre staff are unlikely to understand much about computer security or Linux).

Messa

Sorry but this is pure paranoia, you should put your efforts into into securing your main PC in the 'normal' way and enjoy online banking the way 99.99% of the users do !

henm2

Yes don't bother with live CDs. Just boot from a Linux Mint cinnamon system installed on your PC/Laptop.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

Oh the days of IE3 and saved passwords.

Lloyds loved it in them days, even the wife old log in as well!