As presence 1960 (curious name) points out, everyone has to decide for themselves where to draw the line between safety and convenience. Most malicious hackers go after the easier targets because, basically, they are lazy and don't want to do anymore work than they have to. There are enough easy targets out there, most people who take reasonable precautions will not need to worry.
Even if you never bank online, your account still can be accessed online by a determined hacker so eschewing internet banking will not make you any safer than if you use reasonble precautions if you do access your account online. As I pointed out earlier, several years ago, my debit card was compromised by a hacker(s) that broke into a credit/debit card clearing house (I had my money back in 24 hours). The only thing I could have done to prevent that would have been to close the account and never, ever use a debit/credit card. Obviously, that's never going to happen because it is too inconvenient. Everything we do in life has risks. We risk getting killed everytime we get in a car. Are we going to quit driving? Heck, even walking is dangerous because we could get hit by someone else's car. We risk getting robbed everytime we leave our houses with valuables on us. Yet we still do. A movie theater became a massacre scene. Are we going to quit going to movies?
I'm not worried about the predicted massive attack. While plenty big enough to be stable, my credit union is small enough to not likely to be worth the effort to hack. With the same effort it would take to hack into a smaller bank, one can hack into a bigger bank and reap bigger rewards. And some of the bigger banks are notorious for poor security; in fact, Bank of America is downright notorious for it. All my accounts are Federally or State insured so, even if the worst happened, I would eventually get my money back.
As long as one is cautious about which public WiFi one uses (open hot spots are frequently unsafe, especially at airports), your bank doesn't use Java based software, and is SSL protected, you are reasonably (there's that word again) safe using public WiFi. Just don't use a public computer, such as at a library or in the lobby of a motel/hotel; those can have keyloggers or other spyware loaded on them. I wouldn't even use them to check my email.
