Photos: The hottest tech out of the UK's Silicon Valley

Cambridge start-ups show off security tech, emotions for avatars and DNA trackers

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By Nick Heath, 24 September 2009 17:20

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The brightest new companies in the UK's Silicon Valley opened their doors yesterday to showcase new technologies.

Fledgling tech businesses from Cambridge were showing off everything from avatars with virtual emotions to plugs that can download video from the internet at the Diving with Dolphins technology exhibition.

Security firm Cronto demonstrated how it plans to help stop online banking customers from being tricked into sending all their money to fraudsters.

Cronto has produced software for mobile phones that will check whether a banking transaction is genuine.

Each time a person tries to complete a transaction online, the bank's website will display a visual code, seen here on the right.

The customer takes a picture of that code with their phone and Cronto's software converts it into the details of the transaction being carried out and a numerical code to authorise the transaction, as seen on the left.

If the customer is happy that the transaction displayed on the phone is the same one they thought they were carrying out they then complete the transaction by typing the authorisation code from the mobile phone into a box on the bank's website.

The system is designed to stop fraudsters from using Trojans to hijack a person's web browser and trick them into authorising a fake transaction.

The fraudsters do this by replacing the details of a genuine online banking transaction with a transaction sending money, usually indirectly, to themselves. The Trojan still displays the details of genuine transaction on the website, fooling the customer into authorising it to go ahead.

Commerzbank in Germany is trialling the system with around 100 of its customers.

Cronto is also building a separate device that could decrypt the visual code that could be provided for bank customers so that they would not need to use their mobile phones.

Photo credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com

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