Macbook Pro on 10.5.8 online banking issues, + failed verify... help!

Question

Macbook Pro (late 2008) 10.5.8
I could not sign in to my online banking  (it would sign me back out immediately), and I was told by the bank IT that it is malicious software of some type on my machine.
I ran the Sophos scan (Sophos still supports 10.5.8 until April 2014) and it found nothing.
In disk utilities, I ran "verify" and it came up with:
-Invalid volume file count.
-Invalid volume directory count
-Error:Filesystem verify or repair failed.
I have read through The Safe Mac, very helpful... I also disabled Java in both Firefox and Safari. This could be a source for the issues.
I do back up using time machine quite religiously... I am very worried about wiping and re-installing, I have a ton of inter-dependent software working beautifully, and cannot update any of the programs because nothing will work if even one of these programs is updated. So I really am married to 10.5.8, and this particular computer.
I realize it is time to bring my Mac completely offline permanently.
Any help or suggestions as to how to best proceed to keep it happy and keep what I currently have would be great.
Thanks guys/gals!

Answer 1

A "live verify" (ie, a verify performed on the currently-running system drive) in Disk Utility is unreliable. It's likely that you have a problem, but not guaranteed. You'll need to repair the hard drive at a minimum. Instructions are here:
http://pondini.org/OSX/DU6.html
In my experience, repairs aren't always that reliable. In addition, I've been told that modern drives do not have these kinds of problems unless they are failing, but have no personal knowledge relating to that and don't know whether your five-year-old drive would be considered "modern." In any case, though, if it were me, I would probably erase the hard drive and restore from backups if I were you, rather than relying on a repair.
If the repair can't be completed, or if erasing the hard drive doesn't work, or if the problem comes back after erasing or repairing, then the drive is probably failing and will need to be replaced.
Regarding the bank issue, I believe this is either an error on the part of your bank or represents an attempt to hack your bank account remotely. If I were you, I would demand (politely, but firmly) an explanation of what the bank saw that they are identifying as malicious.
I honestly don't know how the bank could possibly identify malicious access, unless they noticed an attempted access from a weird IP address (for example, from an IP address in a different country or belonging to an identity-hiding service), which would indicate a hack not involving your computer. If malware on your computer was attempting access to your bank site, it wouldn't really look any different than a normal access attempt to the bank's site.