> I really should use a separate machine solely for financial transactions. But I don't. I doubt if even 1% of people do. Any old machine should work, no matter how slow, because it's not used very often.
I think it has more potential for danger since it is not going to be used often, you would lack the security updates that might leave the computer vulnerable (e.g. shellshock). You might do all the updates before doing any transaction which is very troubling to wait for. But depending on the attack surface, there might be a window for attack between you connect to the internet and do the updates.
One example is you could have get attacked via shellshock from a malicious / infected router over DHCP.
I think it has more potential for danger since it is not going to be used often, you would lack the security updates that might leave the computer vulnerable (e.g. shellshock). You might do all the updates before doing any transaction which is very troubling to wait for. But depending on the attack surface, there might be a window for attack between you connect to the internet and do the updates.
One example is you could have get attacked via shellshock from a malicious / infected router over DHCP.