Davis Freeberg’s Digital Connection

If you’ve ever called up your bank or credit card company, you know that most financial institutions tend to stick with the same old boring account verification questions. There may have been a time, when your mother’s maiden name was enough to protect you against identity theft, but in today’s information society, this is no longer good enough.

I’m not sure why we haven’t seen banks ask more creative questions, but I like Om Malik’s suggestion, that it’s time to come up with new secret password questions. In a post raising the issue, he suggests alternatives like what is your World of Warcraft name or who was your first online date?

The World of Warcraft suggestion is probably a little weak because outside people can figure that out, but I’d argue that the first internet date question, is probably a much bigger secret then the last four digits of someone’s social security number. Since most of Om’s suggestions were geared more towards the Web 2.0 crowd, I decided to put together a list of my own questions, for digital television enthusiasts. Feel free to chime in, if you have your own suggestions.

1.) What show do you always record, but never find the time to watch?

2.) Name a TV show that you love, but would never admit to being a fan of?

3.) What is the worst show on television?

4.) What operating system do you use for your television (ex: TiVo, Media Center, Xbox 360, etc.)?

5.) If you had to remove one button from your remote control, which one would you give up?

6.) How many hours of TV do you watch each week?

7.) What time is prime time for you?

8.) What’s a show, that you make sure to always watch live?

9.) How low do prices need to get, before you’d be willing to pay for VOD content?

10.) What is your favorite TV channel?

For a few of these, it would be hard for a bank to implement them because they don’t apply to everyone, but I still like the idea of tougher security at the banks, even if they don’t end up using my digital TV questions. It’s strange that you have to change your banking passwords every 6 weeks, to something that is alphanumeric, contains wacky symbols and is only 8 – 10 digits long, yet all it takes is the city of your birth and someone can change your mailing address or gather information about your account.

The banks would benefit more than anyone, from better security questions and I see a real marketing opportunity for the first institution to step up and take Om’s suggestion seriously. If someone agreed to add, even one of his (or his readers) questions to their password reset screen, they’d get a lot of viral love highlighting their commitment to protecting their customer’s identity. In the end, it’s up to everyone to keep an eye on their own accounts, but by making the security questions more personal, it would make it a lot harder for fraudsters, to gain unauthorized access.

Posted on October 15th, 2007 by Davis
Filed under: Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, Marketing, TV, Technology, TiVo, VOD