Fraudsters Take Aim at Mobile Banking

Fraudsters Take Aim At Mobile Banking

New Phishing Schemes Target Mobile Customers with Bogus Apps

At least two banking institutions have posted messages on their websites, alerting members to be wary of a bogus application distributed on mobile phone platforms.



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Editor's Note:  Jack Dorsey's Square has garnered a lot of media attention for being able to turn the iPhone into a point of sale terminal.  Some have called it "game-changing"



he HomeATM device can do that... and more.  It has a PCI 2.x Certified PIN Entry Device incorporated into the card reader.  Which means it can conduct more secure 2FA PIN transactions.  Which, of course the Square cannot. 



In addition, the HomeATM magnetic stripe card reader 3DES DUKPT instantly encrypts the cardholder data at the mag-head so that the data is never in the clear. 



When it comes to mobile banking, it can be used to authenticate the mobile banking customer the same way the banking customer authenticates themselves at an ATM.  (Swipe Card, Enter PIN)  It can also be used for online bill payments by replicating a retail brick and mortar transaction. 



An exclusive feature of the HomeATM device is that  can also be utilized for instant (real-time) person to person money transfer, from any bankcard to any bankcard.  Lastly, our device can be used to securely conduct online shopping financial transactions outside the browser space.  (encrypted inside the box)

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• Credit Card Primary Account Number and Encryption (deurainfosec.com)

Online Donations to Haiti beinig Blocked by Banks

Charitable online donations to Haiti are exposing an enormous "cause and effect" problem.  The cause is that hackers have been stealing our credit and debit card numbers because we are told to type those numbers into boxes on websites. 



Here's the interesting twist.  When card numbers are stolen, (because people type them into boxes in browsers)  many card thieves need to test to see whether the newly acquired/stolen card numbers work.   So what do they do?  They "type" the stolen card number into a box at a charitable website and make a small donation to a charity. 



The effect, is...this behavior has become so prevalent, many banks have blocked first time donations to charity websites. 



The end result is that many online donations to charities helping victims of the Haiti earthquake are being wrongly blocked by banks as fraudulent.  It is fair to say that hackers are indirectly responsible for screwing up our charitable donation process.  (I say indirectly because what's "directly" responsible is typing vs. swiping.)



I wasn't aware of the magnitude of this problem until I started seeing reports cropping up all over the the web about blocked donations.  Everyone knows that the bad guys try and take advantage of natural disasters using phishing, spamming, fake donation websites, etc. 



When I take into accont problems associated with donations to Haiti being blocked by online banking platforms, it make me wonder how much more badly needed money could have gotten into the hands of of those who need it most. Millions? Tens of Millions?



It's bad enough that consumers must worry about being duped by fraudsters, (see related article below)  but when you add to the equation that banks are blocking well-intentioned and genuine charitable donations, the system obviously doesn't work as well as it should...could...and would. 



Did you know that if you used a PCI certified PIN Entry Device to make donations the transaction would never be blocked, and better yet, the money would arrive instantly. 



Oh...and because the card is swiped and the cardholder information is instantly encrypted (and because people are no longer instructed to "type" their card number into a box in a browser) the transaction would be exponentially more secure...meaning that the likelihood that the donated money reaches it's intended target would rise exponentially as well. 

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• Haiti: Open Up Your Wallet, But Exercise Caution (themoderatevoice.com)

2Checkout.com Names Christopher Daly Chief Marketing Officer

COLUMBUS, Ohio--(BUSINESS WIRE)--2Checkout.com, Inc., a leading provider of e-commerce and payments processing solutions for merchants, announced today the appointment of Christopher Daly as Chief Marketing Officer. Daly, a veteran of the payments industry, held previous positions at Alliance Data, PayPal, and Bill Me Later. “I am really excited to join the team at 2Checkout.com. The company has experienced amazing organic growth that we plan to build on to make 2Checkout synonymous with global payment processing,” stated Daly.



Tom Dailey, president of 2Checkout.com, stated, “We are very happy Chris is joining our executive team. His deep industry knowledge and marketing experience will be important as we implement our aggressive growth plans.”



About 2Checkout.com, Inc.



Established in 2000, and headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, 2Checkout.com (2CO) offers full service e-commerce and payments solutions serving over 60,000 web-based businesses throughout the world. 2CO provides online businesses a merchant account alternative and a fully automated suite of backend services. In addition to a fast and secure checkout system accepting a wide variety of payment methods, 2CO offers built-in fraud protection, 24-hour customer care, PCI data storage compliance, an automated shopping cart, easy to use plug-n-play code and settlement in multiple international currencies.

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• Chase Paymentech: 2009 Online Shopping Volume up 17.3% (pindebit.blogspot.com)

zpizza Introduces a Mobile Experience through Mocapay

DENVER--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mocapay, a mobile experience platform, has developed a strategic relationship with zpizza, a national gourmet pizza, sandwich and salad chain. Through the relationship, zpizza will leverage the Mocapay platform to mobilize its gift and customer loyalty program to support its marketing and sales initiatives.



Using Mocapay's mobile Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology,  zpizza will be able to provide its customers a secure mobile commerce solution. The company will also have the ability to distribute customized promotional text messages and mobile coupons to customers on a national or regional scale, or targeted to specific store locations. Mocapay will initially launch the mobile experience platform within zpizza’s Colorado and Southern California-based locations; zpizza is currently in 16 states, Mexico, and the Middle East with 94 units in total and growing.



“As zpizza grows, we continue to search for ways to differentiate the brand and engage with our customer base,” says Amir Sabetian, vice president of operations for zpizza. “Mocapay’s platform is a SaaS technology so it’s easy for us to implement and scale over time. By working with Mocapay, we now have a new, targeted channel to reach our customers while supporting our marketing and sales efforts and ultimately building customer loyalty.”



Through the relationship, zpizza mobile account holders will be able to conduct mobile transactions at the point-of-sale, access their account balance and transaction history, find the nearest zpizza location accepting mobile gift and loyalty, and reload their zpizza account, all from their mobile phone. Customers will also be able to conduct mobile gifting, which allows real-time gift giving directly to another mobile phone. Not only is this a customer benefit, but mobile gifting helps zpizza to increase its revenue and customer base.



“We are very excited to work with zpizza to provide them an integrated mobile marketing and sales solution to enhance the lifetime value of a customer,” said Kevin Grieve, CEO, Mocapay. “We have seen very strong consumer adoption rates among early customer roll outs, we’re confident Mocapay will have a positive impact on building customer loyalty for the zpizza brand.”



About Mocapay



Mocapay is a mobile experience platform for innovative merchants that offers an integrated marketing and sales solution to enhance the lifetime value of a customer. The platform addresses these merchants’ need for a new channel that will broaden their gift and loyalty programs by mobilizing sales and marketing to reach customers anytime, not just at the point of sale, encourage purchases and build a stronger brand affinity. Based in Denver, Mocapay is a privately held, venture funded company founded in 2006. For more information, visit www.mocapay.com.



About zpizza



zpizza was founded in the art colony of Laguna Beach, California, where creativity and craftsmanship have flourished for almost a century. So it comes as no surprise that our critically acclaimed pizza is a true Laguna original. A passion for great food is why we start with dough made from premium Montana winter-wheat flour prepared fresh every day, hand-thrown and fire-baked until uniquely crisp. Our zest for quality continues when the toppings go on. We combine select ingredients using award-winning skim mozzarella from Wisconsin, certified organic tomato sauce, MSG-free pepperoni, additive-free sausage, and fresh produce. Our gourmet salads and sandwiches are just as delicious. For more information, visit www.zpizza.com.