A recent study released by the University of Michigan says that the majority of online banking websites are insecure, making it vulnerable to hackers and identity thieves.

The study shows that as much as 75 percent of the 214 online banking websites had a design flaw that put users of those websites at risk. These design flaws are built into the system, where simple patches and updates do not really fix the problem. Users of such websites are also exposed to security threats.

Examples of design flaws that the study found are the following: 1) The user has a secure log-in box placed in an insecure web page, the availability of contact information in an unsecured page, and the lack of a warning when a user is redirected outside the domain of the online banking site.

Such flaws run the risk of XSS (Cross-Site Scripting) attacks and phishing attacks since such flaws are the ones often used by hackers and other cyber-criminals.