Tuesday, May 12, 2009

FinovateStartup09 Crowd Chooses HomeATM to Demo

HomeATM was one of the companies that participated in FinovateStartup09 on April 28th.

We arrived just a bit concerned on account of how Acculynk, our semi-competitor (they don't do TRUE PIN Debit) was preselected as demo company whereas we had not been one of the pre-selected companies to perform a live 7 minute demo.

However, we were aware of the fact that after the lunch break, attendees would be enabled to vote for 3 companies whom they wanted to see perform a live demo. So at least available to us the potential opportunity to do so.

Meanwhile, our booth downstairs in the exhibitor hall was lined with our PCI 2.0 personal swiping devices, including one attached to the USB port on a laptop in order to perform live demo's to interested parties who dropped by our booth during the 90 minute lunch break.

It was a busy 90 minutes to say the least. We performed live (in real-time) person to person money transfer demo's for several interested parties including, but certainly not limited to: Amazon Payments, Wells Fargo and several very interested key representatives from PayPal.

You see, what makes our offerinig unique is that we eliminate third party products. We move money from any bank card to any bank card. There's no need for a PayPal debit card or a Amazon reloadable card. We use the bank-issued card along with the bank-issued PIN to transfer money to and from ANY US bankcard. As a reviewer states below, it's prettty slick.

Anyway, the lunch break, which provided time for attendees to visit booths and find out more information about participating companies, ended and it was time for them to select the companies they wanted to see demo.

The votes were tablulated and first up to perform a live demo was...HomeATM. Our COO Mitch Cobrin thanked the attendees for choosing HomeATM and we performed our 7 minute (alloted-time) demo in 6:59.

Fincision live blogged the event. I've included two posts on his reaction to the demo's, one on Acculynk and one on HomeATM below. To see his entire post on FinovateStartup09, click the following link: http://fincision.com/2009/04/live-from-finovate-startup-2009/

10:31 PM mikelinskey - Acculynk are up next; hope they’re a bit clearer than the last presenter! Here’s another debit card play. Acculynk demo is a bit cumbersome. Very slow & painful. Still have no idea what this is all about. Aaaah, here it comes. Ajax window appears over the shopping cart and a pin pad appears. Entering a pin, and the pin pad re-scrambles after each digit is input. “That’s it”. Uh? I just don’t get this. What is the point? How is this any better than ‘Verified by VISA’?

11:38 PM mikelinskey - HomeATM are on. This is all about real time money transfer. A small company with a big technology, they have a secured patent for their PIN-related technology. It involves swiping your debit card in a USB-connected hardware device on which you also enter your PIN. This looks very slick. They haven’t mentioned their business model. Interesting, though.

LBS Used to Cut Down on Credit Card Fraud

Mobile phone technology developed to cut down credit card fraud - SC Magazine UK

Mobile phone technology that can locate a person and determine if a credit card transaction is fraudulent has been developed by Ericsson IPX.

Following incidents where members of the IPX team had been victims of credit card fraud and had their cards blocked due to ‘unusual activity', IPX has developed the technology that can determine where a user is geographically in around two seconds.

Donya Ekstrand, head of marketing for IPX, claimed that she was called by her credit card provider and told that her card had been used in Tokyo while she was in Stockholm, and the card continued to be used for 30-35 minutes even after the activity was detected, with the criminal spending around €3,200.

Ekstrand said: “I started to think how can this happen? This is a global solution, we can reach any credit card owner in the world and we can reach about 96 per cent of the world's mobiles. It takes two seconds to check where a mobile is – it is an easy query.”

Peter Garside, IPX UK and Ireland director, claimed that the technology allows the location of which country the users' mobile phone is in, and guess the probability of where the person is.

Garside said: “Generally everyone who has a credit card has a mobile phone, so it is easy to marry the two to a bank to say that the subscriber is ‘here'. The technology in the phone is available on a raw level; it is an application that we are exploiting.”

Ekstrand further claimed that there is the potential for an SMS message to be sent to the user once a suspicious action has been made, and it would be more popular with customers as an SMS is a lot less intrusive than a call.

“We have talked to banks on how to use SMS, this is the first time it has been used globally and we need to make sure that it works with the infrastructure”, said Ekstrand.

Microsoft Seeks $3.75B Cash Infusion

E-Commerce News: Wall Street: Microsoft Seeks $3.75B Cash Infusion From First-Ever Debt Offering

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Save 50% on Microsoft Office for Mac 2008. Click here to learn more. More about Microsoft priced a US$3.75 billion debt offering on Monday, a first for the world's largest software maker. Microsoft said in a Securities and Exchange Commission More about SEC filing that it is offering five-, 10- and 30-year senior unsecured notes.

In a press release, the company said it will sell $2 billion of 2.95 percent notes due June 1, 2014; $1 billion of 4.20 percent notes due June 1, 2019; and $750 million of 5.20 percent notes due June 1, 2039. The software maker said it will use proceeds from the sale for general corporate purposes, including possible acquisitions and stock buybacks.

Authorized Before Rate Hike

Last September, Microsoft's board authorized it to take on up to $6 billion in debt. Standard & Poor's Rating Services gave Microsoft an "AAA" corporate credit rating. The authorization came just before interest rates soared. Microsoft, which is sitting on more than $25 billion in cash, could afford to wait until rates came down to make a move.

Continue Reading at eCommerceTimes.com

94% of Payment Card Fraud Due to Network Probs

Mass network compromise cause of most online fraud

Ninety-four percent of payment-card fraud due to network problems

By Ellen Messmer , Network World , 05/12/2009

Mass compromise of merchant networks and card processors is viewed as the main cause of payment-card fraud, according to a survey of 113 financial services firms, which was published Tuesday.

In contrast, online attacks -- such as phishing -- are seen as a far less-significant cause of card fraud by the survey's respondents, who are management executives and antifraud or security managers at financial institutions in the United States, Europe and Asia. According to the survey, sponsored by security firm Actimize, 94% of the 113 financial-services firms could trace some percentage of payment-card fraud they experienced directly back to mass compromises of networks. In the survey, several examples of mass compromise events were given, including those known to have occurred at Heartland Payment Systems, grocery retailer Hannaford Brothers, retail-store chain TJX, as well as HNRC. RBS, BJs, DSW and Countrywide.

When asked the question: "Do you believe you have seen stolen data from the mass-compromise events used in fraud attacks?", 55% of the respondents answered "none", but the remainder pointed most frequently to TJX and Heartland.

About 85% of the respondents said they decided to reissue payment cards to between 1% to more than 20% of their cardholder population in response to news of a mass compromise although there was no immediate indication of fraud losses. In contrast, online scams are seen as having much more minimal impact in terms of card fraud. About 36% of the survey respondents said that less than 1% of card fraud they experienced was due to online scams such as phishing. About 40% blamed online card scams for 1% to 4% of card fraud they witnessed, and only 1.67% blamed online scams for more than 20% of the card fraud they experienced.

The survey also asked about ATM/debit card fraud claims specifically. More than 69% of survey respondents said their organizations had seen an increase in ATM/debit-card fraud last year in comparison to the prior year, with the majority citing between 5% to 49% increase.

In addition, more than 73% of the financial institutions indicated they had no technology in place to stop fraudulent transaction in real time. The amount of losses in 2008 due to ATM fraud cited by institutions ranged from $744,321 to $12 million.

"IT" Reap Gains from Increasing Web Attacks

Business ICT Risks - General
Source: The Economic Times
Complete item: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Internet-/IT-security-firms-to-reap-gains-from-increasing-Web-attacks/articleshow/4505580.cms

Description:
Firms like Symantec, Quick Heal and Trend Micro are looking at riding the growth in the IT security sector as more and more enterprises are turning to these firms for solutions in view of increasing Web attacks.

India's IT security market, in the enterprise segment, is pegged at about USD 130 million, and research firm Frost and Sullivan (F&S) has estimated that it would grow at a CAGR of 19.21 per cent over the next few years.

E-Secure-IT
https://www.e-secure-it.com

Twitter Photo Sharing Now Available

Linkbee.com Adds Twitter Photo Sharing

Linkbee.com, the pioneer in monetizing short URL's has added photo sharing functionality for Twitter users.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) May 12, 2009 -- With Twitter.com becoming popular around the globe, Linkbee.com has been a pioneer in allowing users to monetize their Twitter accounts. Linkbee started off by offering users multiple options to monetize short URL's and has paid out over $25,000 since its inception back in 2008. As of today, Linkbee has happily announced the launch of Twitter Photo Sharing directly on Linkbee.com.

"Competitors such as Bit.ly have experienced solid recent growth mainly because of Twitter, so it's no coincidence that we are targeting Twitter users with our latest developments," says Aleks Dugonjic, co-founder of Linkbee.com.

Linkbee's Photo Sharing technology allows users to post photos to their Twitter accounts directly on the Linkbee.com website. In addition, Linkbee has given users two options in monetizing these photos; first being the standard interstitial before the photo page loads, and the second allows users to place their Google Adsense code directly on the page where the photo resides.

"We are moving into an age where webmasters, bloggers and even tweeters need to be rewarded for their work. The user is our concern and it only makes sense that they get a piece of the pie," says Chris Pavlovski co-founder of Linkbee.com.

The photo page holds two ad spots, a 468x60 banner above the main photo and a 300x250 rectangle beside the photo. The user gets the banner spot using Google Adsense while Linkbee will use the rectangle spot for handling their costs. In order to maintain the integrity of the photo sharing program, Linkbee will not allow both interstitials and banner sharing simultaneously.

Linkbee.com was developed by JMG - Jolt Media Group and founded by both Chris Pavlovski and Aleks Dugonjic. The website receives over 1 million hits daily and is the pioneer in monetizing short URL's and photos for Twitter.

Heartland to MasterCard...Fine...Let's Fight!

This is really a desperate act. Both Visa and MasterCard have already stated that Bobo's (Bob O.Carr) Heartland Payment Systems was NOT PCI compliant when the breach occurred and Bobo waited until he could unload a bunch of stock before he announced the breach under the cover of BO's inauguration. From Finextra:

Heartland Payment Systems says a fine of over $6 million imposed on it by MasterCard in relation to the massive data breach it suffered last year is illegal and will be contested.

Reporting first quarter results, the firm revealed it incurred $12.6 million in expenses and accruals attributable to the massive data breach, which saw malicious software in the firm's processing system potentially compromising the card data of millions of people. The costs contributed to a first quarter Gaap net loss of $2.5 million. In an earnings call, Heartland CEO Robert Carr says over 50% of the $12.6 million expense relates to a fine MasterCard assessed against the processor's sponsor banks.

The fine was imposed because of an alleged failure by Heartland to take appropriate action once it learned that its systems may have been breached.

Carr says the company responded appropriately and "upon discovering the intrusion it took immediate and extraordinary action to address the intrusion" and also "fully co-operated" with MasterCard's investigation into the breach.

Editor's Note: Bullcrappola! BobO waited until he could sell as much stock as possible and announced the hack on the day Barrack Obamo was inaugurated. That's neither immediate, nor extraordinary action. Once again the room permeates with the smell of "my shit don't stink-iness." Wait until you get the results of the SEC investigation BobO.

"Heartland therefore considers the MasterCard fine to be in direct violation of both the MasterCard rules and applicable law and it intends and is prepared to vigorously contest and it has recommended to its sponsor banks that they vigorously contest, through all means available including litigation if necessary any liability that may be asserted or imposed upon Heartland or its sponsor banks by reason of this fine," says Carr.

Continue Reading at Finextra

permeates the room with the smell of my shit don't stink-iness

Western Union Scam Alert

Scam / Fraud / Hoax Alerts
Source: E-Secure-IT Honey pot
More info: https://www.e-secure-it.com/upload/354821.pdf

Description:
For full details, Whois, Header, website screenshots etc.; see the PDF in the E-Secure-IT database.

Target: Global
Notes: This may be a phishing scam, although the attached file ( MTCN_INVOICE.zip) is most likely downloading a Trojan.
Subject: Western Union Transfer MTCN: 2704897818
From: "Western Union" <apppz@gmail.com>

Dear customer!

The money transfer you have sent on the 5th of March hasn't been collected by the recipient. Due to the Western Union regulation the transfers which are not received in 30 business days are to be returned to sender. To collect your cash you need to print the invoice attached to this email and visit the nearest Western Union office.

Thank you!

E-Secure-IT
https://www.e-secure-it.com

BIS Guidance on Cross Border Wire Transfers

TheBank for International Settlements has provided final guidance (PDF) on duediligence and transparency regarding cover payment messages incross-border wire transfers.

The new rules are intended to clampdown on the use of cover payments to hide the identities of wiretransfer recipients in support of regulatory initiatives on anti-moneylaundering and terrorism financing.

In January Lloyds TSB wasslapped with a $350 million penalty by the US Justice department fordeliberately falsifying wire transfers destined for countries orindividuals on US sanctions lists.

According to court documents,Lloyds deliberately removed material information - such as customernames, bank names and addresses - from payment messages so that thewire transfers would pass undetected through filters at US financialinstitutions.

The stripping of information allowed more than$350 million in transactions to be processed by US correspondent banksthat might have otherwise been blocked or rejected due to sanctionsregulations or for internal bank policy reasons.

Continue Reading at Finextra

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Mass network compromise cause of most online fraud

Disqus for ePayment News