Bank of America beefs up security for online banking

(Reuters) — Bank of America Corp. will start using an additional layer of authentication for online banking, the bank said on Monday, amid a wave of high-profile data breaches at several big U.S. companies.

The bank said it would incorporate Intel Corp.'s Online Connect technology, that enables fingerprint touch payments, in its online banking systems next year.

The financial services industry is among the most vulnerable to cyber crime because of the massive amount of money and valuable data that banks, brokerages and investment firms process each day.

Just last month, credit monitoring firm Equifax Inc. disclosed that cyber criminals had breached its systems between mid-May and late-July and stolen the sensitive information of millions of Americans.