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Therefore, in the interest of protecting the consumer AND the merchant, we know that we had no choice but to do it the "hard" way and create a small, easy to use, secure point of sale device . It's the way it's been done since the beginning of electronic payments and...
BERLIN--A key piece of Internet technology that banks, e-commerce sites, and financial institutions rely on to keep transactions safe suffers from a serious security vulnerability, an international team of researchers announced on Tuesday.
They demonstrated how to forge security certificates used by secure Web sites, a process that would allow a sufficiently sophisticated criminal to fool the built-in verification methods used by all modern Web browsers--without the user being alerted that anything was amiss.The problem is unlikely to affect most Internet users in the near future because taking advantage of the vulnerability requires discovering some techniques that are not expected to be made public (Editor's Note: too late, cat's outta the bag..now that they know it can be done, it'll be done again) as well as overcoming engineering hurdles: performing the initial digital forgery consumed approximately two weeks of computing time
(Editor's Note: yeah, the "initial" digital forgery took that long, but now that they know how to do it how long would it take? Besides, the potential monetary reward for two weeks work is huge ) on a cluster of 200 PlayStation 3 consoles.
In addition, a criminal needs to find a way to reroute traffic from a legitimate Web site to his own, perhaps through techniques that have become well-known in the last few years. (Editor's Note: What? It's unlikely to happen unless hackers use "well-known techniques?" They're kidding right? That's what the kid with the paper is selling, but I'm not buyin' it.)
Yet if one group can do it today, others eventually will. (Editor's Note: at least that line is clearly stated) "We have a proof-of-concept that allows us to impersonate any supposedly secure Web site on the Internet," said David Molnar, a doctoral student in computer science at the University of California at Berkeley.
Molnar and six other researchers presented their findings during an afternoon session of the Chaos Computer Club's annual conference here on Tuesday. Other team members include Jacob Appelbaum and Alexander Sotirov.
Their work has focused on finding vulnerabilities in a technology known as Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL, which was designed to provide Internet users with two guarantees: first, that the Web site they're connecting to isn't being spoofed, and second, that the connection is encrypted and is proof against eavesdropping. SSL is used whenever a user navigates to an address beginning with "https://". SSL certificates essentially stand for the claim that, for instance, etrade.com actually belongs to E-Trade Inc., and is not being operated by a thief hoping to steal account passwords.Most browsers indicate that SSL is active by displaying a small padlock icon. (see pic on right) An attack using a forged authentication certificate--which is what the researchers say they have done--is insidious because the browser can't detect it and the padlock icon would still appear.
Unlike most security issues, this problem cannot be fixed with a simple software update. "The bug is not in anyone's software," Sotirov said. "It's not the browser that's at fault. The browser does exactly what it's supposed to do... The problem is that what it's supposed to do is wrong."
The attack exploits a mathematical vulnerability in the MD5 algorithm, one of the standard cryptographic functions used to check that SSL certificates (and thus the corresponding Web sites) are valid. This function has been publicly known to be weak since 2004, but until now no one had figured out how to turn this theoretical weakness into a practical attack.
An SSL certificate is a small file that ties a real-world corporate identity to a Web site address and a corresponding public encryption key. This is presented to a private certificate authority firm, which is supposed to verify the link between identity and domain name and then cryptographically "sign" the certificate to vouch for it.
The problem arises when someone else is able to forge the same signature... continue reading at CNET News
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Global Payments wins top internet card processing award - Taiwan News OnlineGlobal Payments Asia-Pacific Limited ("Global Payments") was recently named by MasterCard Worldwide as its Top Processing Partner for the Global WebPay(TM) product that leverages the MasterCard Internet Gateway Service (MiGS) for online card processing. Global Payments was chosen from more than 69 bankcard acquirers that use MasterCard's Internet gateway today across Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.
Global Payments' win is attributed to Global WebPay's unique solution that provides online merchants with the capability to process multi-country, multi-sales channel and mult-currency card transactions. The Global WebPay product offers merchants a Web-based user interface to integrate their online stores, call centers and IVR sales through a single connection. This single interface requires minimal integration which significantly reduces operating costs and allows merchants to seamlessly integrate all their card-not-present transactions across multiple jurisdictions in Asia.
Global WebPay is currently available in 9 Asian markets: Hong Kong, Brunei, India, Malaysia, the Maldives, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Taiwan. This product offers online merchants more than 50 transaction currencies and ten payment currencies, thereby allowing merchants to receive funding in local Asian currencies and minimize forex related costs.
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CNN Money reports that the recession, discounts and bad weather are to blame.NEW YORK (Reuters) -- The U.S. holiday shopping season is the worst since at least 1970 due to the recession, heavy discounting and harsh winter weather just before Christmas, the International Council of Shopping Centers said Tuesday.Sales at U.S. chain stores fell 1.8% in the week ending Dec. 27 compared with the previous year, while sales fell 1.5% compared with the prior week, according to the ICSC-Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Store Sales index.
The ICSC expects holiday sales in November and December to fall 1.5% to 2%.
That would represent the first decline since the ICSC began tracking holiday sales in 1969...(so it could be the worst since '29?)
Related Stories at CNN Money
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Holiday 2008 Top 40
Online Retail Satisfaction IndexThe Top 40 Online Retail Satisfaction Index assessed customer satisfaction with leading online retailers during the holiday shopping season, the most critical time of the year. 2008 was the fourth year in a row that ForeSee Results conducted this research, allowing for valuable insights on year-over-year performance by individual retailers.
Overview Commentary: This report ranks the Top 40 retailers in terms of how well they satisfy customers online and contains high-level insights into drivers of customer satisfaction during the critical holiday shopping season. Highlights include:
- Amazon and Netflix top the list and are the only two online retailers to score above 70.
- Only 10 websites improved satisfaction year-over-year, while more than 40% saw satisfaction decline.
- More than a quarter of all websites scored 70 or lower, well below industry standards
To download the free report you'll need to fill out a form on ForeSee's website. They also have a free report on the Top 30 online retailers in the UK available for download.
To read more, the NY Times Blog has a story on it in today's publication. Click here to read "How E-Commerce Sites Stack Up" there.
Here's a snippet:Those that score 80 or greater are classified as excellent. Only Netflix and Amazon.com, which tied at 84, made the cut, which might help explain why Amazon.com recently reported its best holiday season ever during the worst holiday season for e-commerce as a whole. Close behind were QVC, the Apple Store, Barnes & Noble, L.L.Bean, Walmart.com and Newegg.com (which sells computer parts.)Tying at 69, the lowest score in the group, were Circuit City, HSN, Overstock.com, (that's what happened) HomeDepot.com, Neiman Marcus and Gap...
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Consumers fear mobile banking security threats – study
The Paypers- Another widespread opinion among consumers who chose not to sign up for mobile banking is the fact that since mobile transactions are not yet mainstream, mobile banking services providers cannot anticipate the type of attacks fraudsters could launch against users once mobile banking adoption rates climb. Despite inherent safety features such as real-time transaction alerts and transaction level validation, the research indicates that consumers overlook advantages and mainly fear security threats such as malware, which are not widespread or can be easily blocked in mobile devices.
Thus, 73 percent of consumers fear hackers can remotely access their phones, 68 percent of interviewees are concerned sensitive mobile banking data can be stolen using a wireless signal despite encryption, and 54 percent of consumers worry that their mobile phones can be stolen.
The same study points out that all the major US mobile banking platform vendors offer authentication tools which comply with the standards set out by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC), however 56 percent of them have not implemented strong authentication systems for their mobile banking platforms.
The study was conducted by financial services market research company Javelin Strategy & Research. Read Full Article
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E-payment fraud projected to hit $4 billion in 2008, up 11% over 2007E-commerce fraud losses in the U.S. and Canada are expected to reach $4 billion in 2008, an 11% increase from $3.6 billion in 2007, according to CyberSource Corp's 10th annual survey of e-commerce fraud.
Chargebacks accounted for almost half of 2008 online payment fraud losses. The percentage of online revenue lost to fraud held steady from 2007 at 1.4% of online sales, the report says.
Merchants fight only about 50% of the fraud chargebacks they receive, with a third of merchants challenging less than 10%. Merchants that do challenge chargebacks recover, on average, 28% of that revenue, CyberSource says.
The consumer electronics category showed the highest 2008 fraud rate at 2%, nearly double the average among the eight industry segments measured. Merchants with online revenue of $5 million to $25 million faced the most fraud.
The annual survey also found that order-rejection rates tied to suspicion of fraud showed a significant drop to 2.9% of incoming orders, down from 4.2% in 2007. On average, 1.1% of accepted orders were fraudulent, CyberSource says. Merchants have made little progress in minimizing the time spent manually examining good orders, CyberSource says.
Merchants in 2008 accepted an average of 73% of orders they manually reviewed, roughly the same percentage as in 2007. About half of merchants accepted 90% or more of the orders they reviewed.
CyberSource surveyed 400 online merchants in the U.S. and Canada between Oct. 21 and Nov. 11.
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U.S. credit cardholders are not in the mood to charge, according to national poll results recently released by Bankrate, Inc. The phone study was conducted from December 5 through December 7.
Just one percent of those surveyed plan to charge more in 2009, while 32 percent are likely to use their cards less frequently and 15 percent won’t be taking out the plastic at all. Forty percent of these consumers wouldn’t care if their credit lines were cancelled.
As far as credit availability goes, 41 percent of those polled reported that their credit lines were increased, while 44 percent said their lines were unchanged; only six percent experienced a decrease.
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continue reading at American BankerCredit line reductions, account repricing, and other steps that card issuers are taking to control risk could soon start causing their customers to do something many homeowners did this year: walk away from their obligations.
In the past month current and former industry executives and observers have raised concerns that prevalent risk management tactics may spur such behavior — even among customers who still have the capacity to pay.
For example, some observers said aggressive repricing could lead to a spike in "bust-outs" — when cardholders decide to run up as large a balance as possible before abandoning the account. In the past, bust-outs have typically been perpetrated by fraudsters who always planned to default, but they may soon become more common among regular consumers who obtained their cards in earnest, these observers said...
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According to "Inside Facebook" the company has temporarily abandoned its initiative to launch a platform payment system which would enable retailers to conduct e-commerce transactions and accept payments directly inside their Facebook applications."Facebook announced the beta test version of a payments platform initiative in December 2007. It was originally billed as a means to allow Facebook users to carry out transactions and purchase virtual and physical goods and services without resorting to third party payment platforms such as Paypal.
Facebook Payments was also initially designed to act as a revenue generator for Facbook via payment processing commissions, and a means for the social networking website to gather consumer data to facilitate future direct transactions such as the purchase of Facebook’s virtual gift offerings.
However, one year after the initiative was made public, the payment system has not yet been developed and Facebook representatives have confirmed that no further developments are currently conducted regarding the project.
The Paypers. Insights in payments.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_tsZ10tCd3qrXFcNQKoabrvUQE6PHVJ24V1yfgwe0R25YbJV04DtqpnJ_JDvolTBpbvGcaKiOX489_b8ZnRRSnFRYmEcizS6s4kgNbx0gXxpFhn8-wQ3qu0cZxdO5CTnmNa3AlC5gXaiQP4U3FDRuI=s0-d)
Sending money overseas instantly could soon become a reality with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) considering proposals to allow non-banking![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_sBArvgCFUkd1PTC-hYFZvVTLH-_kOZmy9CpyHUvtWJkdi0TgIw2FLz98TwEiEo0-64MVmK49lwIi-ihfD34UupIeOz5IiRku_WWTuEeqgTRsEc5F7Gjf5w6VOqtcyzjaNHUSt_qt7H9LH_kn9o_73Q=s0-d)
Mobile Phones Will Be the Primary Internet Connection by 2020
In a December 2008 survey, 77 percent of Internet activists, developers, and commentators said they believed that mobile phones would be the primary tool for accessing the Internet within the next 12 years.
The Pew Internet & American Life Project survey asked 578 leading Internet experts and 618 other respondents whether they agreed with several "scenarios about the effect of the Internet on social, political, and economic life in the year 2020."
The survey asked respondents to say whether they mostly agreed or mostly disagreed with this scenario:
"The mobile phone is the primary connection tool for most people in the world. In 2020, while "one laptop per child" and other initiatives to bring networked digital communications to everyone are successful on many levels, the mobile phone—now with significant computing power—is the primary Internet connection and the only one for a majority of the people across the world, providing information in a portable, well-connected form at a relatively low price. Telephony is offered under a set of universal standards and protocols accepted by most operators internationally, making for reasonably effortless movement from one part of the world to another."
Some 77 percent of the experts and 81 percent of all respondents mostly agreed with the statement.
While the survey is highly speculative, it is clear that mobile Internet browsing and, therefore, mobile commerce will become an important aspect of every online retailers business in little more than a decade.
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The Washington Post's Chadwick Matin wrote an interesting story last Friday providing further insight into the paradigm shift that is occurring within the retail bricks and mortar world. It's hard to figure out what's changed about malls since then. Malls are a testament to the kind of consumer thinking that got us into the recessionary mess we're in today, after all. And that's why we need to close every single one of them.
Already, malls are in a considerable amount of trouble. Shopping centers on the block are selling for 25 to 35 percent less than they did a year ago. Retail vacancies are on the rise; nationally, 6.6 percent of stores were empty in the third quarter of 2008, a 20 percent increase over the same quarter last year and the highest rate since 2002. Much of the pain is interwoven with the retail sector, where analysts estimate 148,000 stores will have been closed in 2008.
And it will only get worse. Mall stalwarts like KB Toys, Steve & Barry's, and Linens 'N Things are all closing. The recession is expected to rage through 2009, and retail chains will probably be looking at dismal holiday numbers. A mall's chief purpose these days is to be there come the holidays. Now that we're beyond that season, many stores will need to shutter in the new year.
Every store that closes has an impact on the shops left behind. Fewer stores means less foot traffic; less foot traffic means less window shopping; less window shopping means fewer impulse buys. It's a positive-feedback loop that, for malls, is actually negative.
Thus, several of the biggest American mall owners are fighting to stave off bankruptcy as bad bets in real estate have weighed down their ledgers. But, just like with cash-starved families looking to sell their homes, buyers will now only purchase malls for a lowered price since the industry's outlook is so bleak. This would entail huge losses for the mall owners, so they continue to balk. At some point, though, something has to give.
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And when it does, there's going to be major consolidation in the industry. Our current economic state is simply not able to sustain so many meccas of merchandise. Some malls will likely close as fewer and fewer chains are willing to spread themselves so thin. Because, really, if Starbucks isn't expanding, then nobody else is, either.
But why just consolidate? Let's close them all. I'm not saying that all of their tenants should close. Instead, the stores that once filled the malls should go and fill other empty storefronts dispersed across the city. Call it the great chain-store diaspora.
E-ditor's Note: I call it E-vidence that the paradigm shift is E-minent...in fact, it's "virtually" guarant "e"d.
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Discover reports economic confidence improves among small merchantsEditor's Note: Small Biz Owners being "cautiously optimistic" is good news amidst a flurry of bad...to see the data, click here to download in Microsoft Word Format.
Riverwoods, Ill., Dec. 29, 2008 -- After falling to its lowest measurement ever in November, economic confidence among small business owners rose slightly in December. The Discover(R) Small Business WatchSM rose to 72.8 in December, up 5.3 points from November. The index was buoyed by increased optimism that their own business prospects are improving and an indication that more will increase spending on business development in the next six months.
"While we saw small improvements in economic confidence almost across the board this month, the mood still remains cautious," said Ryan Scully, director of Discover's business credit card. "Most small business owners still believe that it will be at least into 2010 before the economy recovers."
December Key Findings:
- 21 percent of small business owners believe that economic conditions for their businesses are getting better, up from 15 percent in November, which was the all-time low in the 29-month history of the Watch. Fifty-one percent feel the conditions are getting worse, which is down from 54 percent last month.
- 24 percent of owners say they plan to increase spending on business development over the next six months. This is an increase from 20 percent who said the same in November. Forty-seven percent say they are planning to decrease spending on business development compared to 51 percent last month.
- Cash flow issues decreased slightly in December as 42 percent of owners say they held off paying some bills in the past 90 days. Forty-four percent said the same in November.
- 63 percent rate the economy as poor, down 2 percent from November; only 6 percent rate the economy excellent or good, the second-lowest rating in this category in the history of the Watch.
- 12 percent feel the economy is getting better, which is the highest in this category since August 2008. The number of small business owners who think the U.S. economy is getting worse decreased by two percentage points to 70 percent in December; and 14 percent think it is staying the same.
69% of Small Business Owners Think U.S. Recovery Will Take At Least 12 Months
As the new year approaches, small business owners remain cautious about the amount of time it will take the economy to crawl out of its slump. Forty-two percent of owners anticipate that economic recovery will take between 12 and 24 months, while 27 percent believe that it will take longer than 24 months. Twenty-three percent think that the recovery will take less than 12 months.
"Economic confidence has been declining for the past year, and small business owners continue to be resilient by doing whatever it takes, including not relying on credit and taking home less pay," Scully said. "It's not surprising that they seem to be buckling down for a long recovery since more than half of them have been telling us the economy is getting worse every month for the past 22 months."
Government Bailout Support Mixed
- Sixty-eight percent of small business owners say they do not expect that government bailout assistance to banks will help their businesses in the next six months.
- Fifty-five percent of small business owners do not believe U.S. automakers deserve a chance to qualify for some form of federal bailout assistance, while 33 percent say they would support a bailout for automakers and 12 percent answered "not sure."
- When it comes to themselves, 48 percent of small business owners say they should be entitled to federal bailout assistance, while 35 percent didn't think small businesses deserved federal bailout help and 16 percent were not sure.
Decreased Sales Pose Biggest Threat
When asked where they have felt the most negative stress on their business operations in the past year, 30 percent said decreased sales; followed by 23 percent who cited higher operating costs; 17 percent said taxes; 7 percent said financing and credit, and 17 percent said their business has not been under stress in the past year.
It appears fewer small business owners are extending credit to their customers. In December, 25 percent said they extend credit, and 72 percent of those who extend credit say that they have customers who have delayed a payment or asked if they could delay a payment in the last three months. In September 2007, 30 percent of small business owners were extending credit to their customers and 64 percent had received delayed payments or requests to delay payments.
The views and opinions expressed by small business owners and consumers who participate in the Small Business Watch survey are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Discover Financial Services or its affiliates.
About the Small Business Watch
The Discover Small Business Watch is a monthly index measuring the relative economic confidence of U.S. small business owners who employ less than five employees, a segment that consists of 22 million businesses producing more than a trillion dollars in annual receipts. The Watch is based on a national random survey of 1,000 small business owners. It is commissioned by the Discover Business Card, which strives to offer the best business credit card for American small businesses, and is conducted by Rasmussen Reports, LLC (www.rasmussenreports.com ), an independent survey research firm. The numeric index is calculated by assigning values to responses to a set of six consistent questions. The base value of the Watch was established at 100.0 based on surveys conducted in August of 2006. In addition to generating the index, the Small Business Watch surveys small business viewpoints on key business drivers, and also surveys 4,000 consumers to gauge purchasing behavior and attitudes towards small businesses. For past results and small business survey data, visit www.discovercard.com/business/watch . For information on Discover Business Card, visit www.discovercard.com/business .
About Discover Financial Services
Discover Financial Services (NYSE: DFS) is a leading credit card issuer and electronic payment services company with one of the most recognized brands in U.S. financial services. The company operates the Discover Card, America's cash rewards pioneer. Since its inception in 1986, the company has become one of the largest card issuers in the United States. Its payments businesses consist of the Discover Network, with millions of merchant and cash access locations; PULSE, one of the nation's leading ATM/debit networks; and Diners Club International, a global payments network with acceptance in 185 countries and territories. For more information, visit www.discoverfinancial.com .
Source: Company press release.
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Amazon had it's "best season ever." (results from Macy's 2008 holiday season results have yet to be released) But make no doubt about it. Macy's is in trouble. Sure, they just negotiated looser terms on its $2 billion in currently unused bank loans, but...![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_v6SsE7yAcOfMyMkeguvbxyiak3BmPPW6JVM-uPRug5jwDJTcLju5K6nXi_4Cql8tgHHS2WetQ9rsws8LcCZiaqzIlq9b-e67J-M7_5i5rAz4wdypdG7J7nC4am1WHt3KUNJoLNPmQiMlt607zZ1Ndv=s0-d)
The Wall Street Journal reports on a dismal holiday season for retailers. Based on the fact that the holiday season constitutes upwards of 30% of annual sales for some bricks and mortar retailers, this is indeed bad news. Combined with the credit crisis, this could be the a death blow for some. But it doesn't surprise me in the very least. The paradigm shifting in consumer shopping behavior would have dealt a nasty blow to some bricks and mortar retailers in a mediocre economy. In this one, you can start writing the obits...
Here's a snippet from WSJ...
Online sales held up better than the rest of the retail market during the dismal holiday period, but the season is still likely to go down as one of the worst on record for the traditionally booming e-commerce sector.
While online spending was down just 2% from Nov. 1 through Christmas Eve compared with a drop of 5.5% to 8% for retail as a whole, e-commerce strength wasn't widespread. Instead, it was clustered around several big-name Web sites such as Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Online sales were also fueled by discounts that aren't likely to continue.
Overall, in a sector where sales have historically increased 20% annually, this is the first holiday season where online sales haven'tgrown. E-commerce sales were "not amazing by any stretch," says JohnAiken, managing director and head of equity research for Majestic Research.
Many traditionally strong ecommerce sites also ended up losing visitors in what is typically their busiest period. Internet auction site eBay Inc.'s traffic dropped 16% between early November and mid-December, while Best Buy Co.'s site experienced a 17% decline in visitor traffic, according to comScore Inc., which tracks Internet activity. The number of visitors to e-commerce Web sites during the period grew less than 1%, compared with growth of about 5% typically.
continue reading at WSJ
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