Hum, and the banks  want all of us to use electronic transfers. 

Once they have all the money and all the weapons...  

Thanks for keeping us up to date, Doc.  There is a raging, silent war going on in the background every minute of every day that we use a computer.  Sad.  But true.

Unless you have an autoimmune disease... which some antivirus software could be rightly called these days.

What we need are secure operating systems based on principles of least privilege, and users educated enough (and the OS usable enough) that they don't willingly defeat the safeguards themselves. Antivirus is just a bandaid, and making it even more resource-costly to run is not the answer.

...ahem...did someone say 'least privilege'?

I could have sworn someone called my name...hehe

in all seriousness though.....what Kryo said!

Autoimmune disease? Not really. There are no B or T lymphocytes in a computer's guts.

The point is an OS recognizing alien code and destroying it. Heuristic AV programs do something similar. 

The least privilege thing..like an intact integument, I suppose. So, Monk the Dermatologist...when are you going to give us some help with that?

Yeah, and with more and more bricks n' mortar branches permanently closing all the time, there mightn't be a choice for millions of people around the globe, especially those in small towns and more isolated areas.  And what pisses me off severely is how banks [especially here in Australia] keep hiking up fees and charges while reducing and even eliminating 'real world' services.  Queues and wait times in banks have grown beyond frustrating because of drastic teller staff cuts.... and try phoning a bank!!!!  With far fewer representatives, also due to drastic staff cuts, one can be on the phone for hours... listening to some doddam awful music with frequent recorded interruptions: "Your call is important to us and....."  

Yeah, sure!!!  If it was that important why did you sack/fire all the telephone representatives?  Oh, that's right, to maximise profits even more and fech the customers.  Fechen bankers!

I'm not sure there is much to say other than re-iterate once more some of the critical points I have already in the past.

Here are a few basic rules I have followed in the many years I've been in IT and they have kept my systems safe (yes, sometimes from myself).

1.  In whatever OS you are using (yes any and every OS) the first step after OS installation, and prior to connecting to the internet should be to create and secure a separate ADMIN account with all elevated privileges necessary for system-wide operation and then remove those same elevated privileges from your regular USER account.  In corporate environments this would of course be different with 'levels' of elevation assigned to specific management-groups/tiers, but for the average home user a single separate secured ADMIN account will suffice.  Least privilege is something everyone should be able to grasp.  Walk around with the keys to your kingdom and it's only a matter of time before someone takes them from you and you lose your kingdom.

2.  Your OS local security policy is the epicenter of privilege enforcement in your OS.  Learn about it, get to know it, make it your friend, configure it and your system security takes on a completely different landscape.  Instead of relying on edge-level and/or all-or-nothing security anymore; with correctly configured 'security polices' enforced your system is now capable of protecting itself in layers.  Layered defenses are much harder to breach and that much easier to recover should something slip past the edge defenses. 

If you however have the 'home' version of an MS OS, you will be unable to manage the 'local security policy' and will have to make do with tightening up the UAC (user account control settings).

3.  Your browser of choice.  Do not install bullshit add-ons for this or for that.  Not only will most of them serve to slow your browsing experience how do you know what they connect to behind the scenes?  I've seen many browsers so add-on riddled that when I've shown a client the various IP's (servers) their browser 'pings' each time they open it most are no longer surprised their 'connection seems so slow/sluggish all the time'.  Blocking of certain web traffic is the job of an edge network router, NOT some bullshit add-on in your browser AFTER it has already penetrated your network and your system.  Get the best network edge router you can afford, then configure it properly.  Then if you've done step 1 and 2, you need not worry about your browser anymore.

These are 3 of the basic principles I have, and continue to compute by.  Computing by them may not guarantee your safety, it will however make you the least desirable target and well, we all know what happens to the low-hanging fruit!