BANK tech-trends News
 

April 25, 2011 - April 29, 2011

• Hardware News
• Software Updates
• ATMs/Kiosks
• Wireless World
• Security Section
• Leaders Roundtable
• Technology and Marketing
• Online Banking/E-Commerce/
  Website Design
• Internet Access
• Call Centers

Complimentary Webinar

Maintaining Telecommunications & Meeting Auditor Requirements

It can be extremely difficult to maintain telecommunications with your staff and customers after a disaster. This point is evidenced by the fact that the Post-Katrina reports from all of the governmental agencies regulating financial institutions placed restoring communications quickly at the top of their lists. The FFIEC reports said that banks must:

"Anticipate disruptions in communications services, possibly for extended periods of time." 

The report also noted that "communications outages made it difficult to locate missing personnel." 

Therefore banks must develop affordable ways to quickly restore their telecommunications infrastructure. This complimentary Webinar will demonstrate how your bank can be prepared for telecom disasters without having a telecom person on staff or spending thousands of dollars on redundant phone systems.
 

What You Will Learn:

- How to inexpensively satisfy telecom disaster requirements
- How to show auditors that you can provide a backup telecom system with just 1 phone call
- How you can successfully answer every telecom disaster preparedness questionnaire on the auditor's forms.

BONUS: Every attendee will receive a sample Telecommunications Disaster Recovery Plan.

Who Should Attend:

IT staff, telecom staff, Audit and Compliance personnel, Managers, and anyone interested in maintaining telecommunications.


Date: Schedule a 30-minute live demonstration at your convenience that could one day save your business. If this isn't the easiest to use, most affordable, and most powerful inbound telecom disaster recovery system that you have ever seen, we will send you a free gift - seeing is believing!

To Register: http://www.banktt.com/webinars.htm  

Costs: Free

~ This Week's News is Sponsored by MARQUIS Software Solutions ~

Please contact John Kassing @ johnk@gomarquis.com, or call 800-365-4274 to learn more about MCIF, referral tracking or CRM solutions that you can and will actually use!

Hardware News

iStorage released their Desktop Secure Hard Drive which comes with a shock-proof design and 256-bit AES hardware encryption. With storage capacities of 1TB, 2TB and 3TB, this 3.5" drive features a USB 3 interface and comes with a brute force hack defense mechanism. The company says that this feature, along with its 6-16 digit PIN code access, ensures all data held on the drive is secure and cannot be accessed by any third party, even if the drive is removed from its enclosure. No software installation or administration rights are required to set it up.

Sourcefire announced a new line of intrusion-prevention systems (IPS): the Sourcefire 3D8000 Series of IPS sensors come in three models ranging from 10G to 40Gbps. The company added that in the second half of 2011 they will upgrade the devices so that they can operate as next-gen firewalls. IPS devices that include next-gen firewalls provide a way to set security based on application usage, as well as traditional port-based control.

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ATMs/Kiosks

Genmega, the Fremont, CA-based ATM manufacturer, announced that they are now shipping their new GT3000 through-the-wall ATM. The GT3000 is available with either an 800-note fixed cassette or a 1700-note removable cassette and optional rear-service panel.

Proponents of contactless ATMs say that their deployment would give banks another effective weapon in the fight against ATM fraud. With contactless ATMs, cardholders wave their cards at the ATM’s card reader which means that there is no possibility to a read a magstripe during the transaction thus skimming is not possible. Contactless ATMs also will put an end to card trapping, which occurs when the user’s card is physically trapped inside the ATM by a device inside the card slot and the PIN is compromised.

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An Oracle study of near-field communication (NFC) says the technology may be too slow for real-world applications. In one scenario, they examined how NFC would work if a consumer used their handset to pay for goods as well as update their loyalty account information and applied coupons. The three transactions would all need to have the data originate on the handset, and Oracle estimated it would take at least six seconds for all three transactions to occur. As a solution, Oracle suggests that phones incorporate a hash code that would be checked against a back-end database that would rapidly perform the needed work. However, this would require every NFC terminal in every store to be permanently online, which could present an added security risk.

According to an Arc Worldwide study, heavy mobile shoppers are fond of their devices and enjoy experimenting with new apps, while light mobile shoppers regard m-commerce as inferior to e-commerce. Light users use mobile solely for such things as looking up hours or using the global positioning system to locate a store, ATM, financial institution, etc.

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Banks running Linux servers may want to take a look at Security Blanket from Raytheon Trusted Computer Solutions. The company says that Security Blanket is the only tool that automatically configures your operating systems to meet industry standards and allows for the easy creation of customized security lock down profiles. The software supports the following operating systems:

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, 5 & 6
• CentOS 4 & 5
• Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) 4 & 5
• Fedora 10, 11, 12 and 13
• Solaris 10 (x86 & SPARC)
• Novell SUSE 10 and 11
• openSUSE 10 and 11

In 2010 the number of breaches skyrocketed to 760 from 141 the year before, according to the "2011 Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report". At the same time the number of actual records compromised by the breaches plummeted from 144 million in 2009 to 4 million in 2010. Financial institutions in previous years accounted for 90% or more of compromised records, but that fell dramatically in 2010 to 35%. The reason is some breaches in past years that involved millions of records were from financial institutions. Also, criminals may be focusing more on other thefts than credit card numbers. These include theft of intellectual property, authentication data, and turning machines into bots to serve botnets, the report says.

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Security:

Securing the Bank from the Inside to the Outside

Actiance - http://www.Actiance.com Read Sarah Carter's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Actiance.pdf

Awareness Technologies - http://www.awarenesstechnologies.com Read Brad Miller's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Awareness.pdf

BrandProtect - http://www.BrandProtect.com Read Michael Kiefer's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/BrandProtect.pdf

Diebold - http://www.Diebold.com Read Scott Harroff's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Diebold.pdf

Harland Financial Solutions - http://www.harlandfinancialsolutions.com Read Jeff Marshall's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/HFS.pdf

HEIT - http://www.goheit.com   Read Jeff Simpler's comments:   http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Heit.pdf

Integrated Media Management - http://www.immonline.com   Read Nish Shah's comments:   http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/IMM.pdf

Indigo Identityware - http://www.indigoidentityware.com Read Thomas J. Rheineck's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Indigo.pdf

mFoundry - http://www.mFoundry.com Read Carlo Cardilli's comments:     http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/mFoundry.pdf

Millennial Vision - http://www.mviusa.com Read Scott Cowan's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/MVi.pdf

Network Box - http://www.networkboxusa.com   Read Pierluigi Stella's comments:   http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/NetworkBox.pdf

Ongoing Operations - http://www.ongoingoperations.com   Read Hugh Smallwood's comments:   http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/OGO.pdf

S1 Defense - http://www.S1defense.com Read Bruce C. Smalley's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/S1Defense.pdf

Savant Protection - http://www.savantprotection.com Read Paul Paget's comments: http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/Savant.pdf

TriGeo Network Security - http://www.trigeo.com   Read Michelle Dickman's comments:   http://www.banktt.com/roundtable/TriGeo.pdf

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At TowerGroup's recent annual financial services conference, speakers covering social media agreed that banks need to master social media, pointing out how powerful social networks have become as communications tools. For example, LinkedIn is the hottest social networking site for B2B communications, growing by a million new users every 12 days. A general consensus was that social media is very much about business and it is more akin to a dialog with your customers, not a channel for distributing traditional advertising and PR campaigns. Others pointed out that there is no easy way yet to calculate a return on investment in terms of dollars, but it is more about making sure that you establish a good dialogue with your customers.

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According to figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the recession has pushed Americans towards more cash use because it helps cut costs and improve budgeting. Debit cards were the most commonly used instrument at 19 payments per month, ahead of cash at 18.4. However, the gap narrowed considerably from 2008 when Americans used debit cards for 21.2 transactions per month compared to just 14.5 for cash. Meanwhile, fewer Americans actually held debit cards in 2009; 77% compared to 80.2% the previous year. A similar decline was seen for credit cards; 72.2%, down from 78.3%. The noncash payment instrument still held by most Americans is the check at 85.4%.

The Western Union Q1 2011 Money Mindset Index compares Gen Y demographic preferences in billing vs. general consumers. Here are some of their findings in regards to bill pay data:

• 33% of both Gen Y and general consumers prefer to pay bills online through their FI’s online payments service
• 38% of Gen Y prefer using the biller website to pay bills vs. 31% of general consumers
• 14% of Gen Y prefer snail mail vs. 23% of general consumers
• 5% of both Gen Y and general consumers prefer walk-in payment

And smartphone data:

• 52% of Gen Y report owning a smartphone vs. 35% of general consumers
• 7% of Gen Y do not own a mobile phone vs. 10% of general consumers
• 30% of Gen Y say improved security is the biggest motivator to view bills via phone vs. 27% of general consumers
• 26% cite the ability to view all bills through a single application as the top motivator to use a smartphone vs. 19% of general consumers
• 23% cite smartphone convenience as the biggest motivator vs. 19% of general consumers

Online authentication has traditionally involved a trade-off between security and usability. A single layer of password authentication is not secure, but strong authentication processes such as hardware tokens and smart cards are costly, difficult to maintain and inconvenient for your customers.

Community banks can reduce costs and increase revenue by encouraging more customers to conduct business on the Web, but many consumers are still wary of online banking. In fact, 30% of consumers cite security concerns as one of the primary reasons they don’t bank online.

This white paper from Confident Technologies will examine the security threats associated with weak authentication practices on the Web, and describe new approaches for easily and affordably adding a second layer of authentication on the website that is both highly secure and easy on people.

Image-based authentication solutions from Confident Technologies can help increase security, reduce support costs and improve the customer experience by adding one-time passwords using an intuitive, picture-based approach.

This white paper also describes how image-based authentication can be used with mobile phones for two-factor authentication that is more secure than sending authentication codes by SMS text message.
 

Click here to access the white paper.

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Toktumi claims that their virtual PBX can be set up and deployed in minutes, plus a complete hosted PBX service with unlimited inbound and outbound calls to US and Canada can be purchased for $14.95 a month. It includes features like auto attendant, virtual assistant, dial-in access, visual voicemail, conference calling, call handling and custom greetings. The PBX also automatically puts callers on hold when you answer waiting calls, transfer calls or set up conferences - callers will never get a busy signal, no matter how many people call at the same time.

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VoltDelta’s OnDemand voice recognition platform is a voice self-service portal that combines speech science with a Voice User Interface (VUI). The company says that CrystalWAVE, also known as the Crystal Weighted Average Voice Evaluation technology, makes use of multiple, simultaneous grammar evaluation techniques with context sensitivity so as to improve recognition accuracy while also reducing speech tuning requirements. The system provides multi-channel support so that contact centers can interact with consumers automatically through such channels as SMS messaging to confirm a speech response, call recording, or even to whisper an agent transfer to avoid repeating steps.

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