As most of money in the world is digital anyways, Why can’t people fake transactions to a Bank account or just add one or two zeros to the balance? What makes online banking so safe that this doesnt work?
Most of even well guarded things have been hacked in the past, so i would imagine it’s at least possible?
In: Technology
There are some decent-ish answers here but everyone is missing the single biggest control that the bank (and every organization) has in its financial systems:
You **NEVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES** have a **singular** transaction take place.
You may, as a customer, perceive just one side of the transaction but to the bank there are always two (or more) transactions taking place, and these transactions **balance**.
If you go to a bank branch and deposit $200 then two transactions take place: your bank account balance (the bank’s *liability* to you) increases $200, and the amount of cash that particular bank branch has (an *asset*) also increases by $200. These two cancel each other out to $0.
If you spend money on a Visa debit card, the balance of your bank account goes down $200 and the balance of the bank’s clearing account to Visa (a liability) increases by $200.
Every transaction works like this, and the system is designed to prevent anything that doesn’t balance being posted. If, due to a failure or error, something does get through, it won’t be too hard for the bank to find the errant transaction. And they **will notice** when the accounts stop balancing.
So, a hacker who increases your account balance needs to reduce some other liability account or increase some asset account. Sooner or later, someone, or an automated control, will most likely pick this up. It’s not impossible but this makes it much harder than just adding zeroes to your account.
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