Answer to cyber-theft may well be er, banks

WHAT goes 0110100010110011 and is dangerous? Here’s a clue, a clickbait from February 2015: “Hackers steal £650m in world’s largest cyber-crime ever detected”.

The letter from Quentin Deakin (Western Mail, December 2) regarding the problems arising from bank closures takes me back to autumn 2014, following yet another round of branch closures announced by Lloyds Bank.

I read an intriguing piece pointing out that banks’ antivirus systems were just one small step ahead of hackers and organised cyber criminals, the so-called digital mafia – but that within the next five to 10 years, what with unscrupulous national governments seemingly becoming more involved, cyber crime will be so sophisticated that it will be impossible to safely conduct any financial transactions over the internet.

Less than six months later we learnt that hackers, believed to be Russian, had stolen £650m in the world’s biggest, boldest multi-bank raid ever. And that’s what we know of.

Hardly a week goes by without some significant financial cyberattack, the latest being the Tesco Bank and National Lottery hacks. Add to that the likelihood of insiders selling critical security information for huge personal rewards – well, not only will we all return to cash, cheques and over-the-counter transactions, but banks, far from closing branches, should be opening Post Office-style branches to cater for basic financial transactions.

The future is already here, folks.

It’s not helped by the fact that all bankers are on short-term, rollover contracts, so they have no interest in the mayhem their successors will inherit because they will have long gone with their own lottery-style payoffs.

Oh yes: What goes 0110100010110011 and is dangerous? The shark-infested internet. Huw Beynon Llandeilo