In the payments industry one of the major ongoing concerns for both issuers and merchants has been fighting fraudulent transactions. Historically the most known types of fraud for Card-Present transactions (Contact and Contactless) are Counterfeit (cloning a card’s magnetic stripe information onto another) and Lost-stolen (using a valid card without requiring a PIN). The merchants…
Category: SECURITY+
Managing Work-Life Balance Under COVID-19
Not too long ago, many of us idealized opportunities to work from home. What was not to love about working from the coziness of home? Your kids were at school, you could focus on productivity and you did not have to bother looking at your watch to be sure you could catch the last express…
Data Privacy Update: First CCPA warning notices distributed, California Assembly Bill 1281 and CPRA
California continues to lead the pack in terms of states implementing and enforcing consumer data privacy rights. Shortly after CCPA enforcement started, the California Attorney General (AG) issued a series of warning notices to various businesses. The content of those letters is confidential, but during a recent conference the Supervising Deputy AG shared some information…
Behind the Numbers of the 2020 Technology Study
This article originally appeared in Convenience Store News. Convenience Store News’ online content can be found here. It is clear that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about technology momentum. The impacts of COVID-19 clearly show the tech influence on ways that businesses must now operate. For those retailers participating in the 2020 Convenience Store News…
Information Technology and Communication During COVID-19
With the ongoing pandemic, workers across the country have had their typical work locations shifted and displaced, often to haphazard home office setups, with some organizations scrambling to enable their workforce to work from home. Resulting from this of course is the obvious chaos, shuffling of duties and tasks, and a general overhaul of how…
Analysis of the Texas AFD Anti-Skimming Regulation
Introduction to the Regulation On September 1st, 2019 Texas Legislature created Chapter 607 of the Texas Business and Commerce code related to card skimmers on automated fuel dispensers (AFDs). This chapter requires petroleum merchants to implement procedures to prevent, detect, and report the installation of skimmers on their unattended AFDs. The Office of the Attorney…
Multi-Factor Authentication and Security Practices Within Office 365
Nearly all organizations experience incoming security threats. Whether it’s via email, malware, or otherwise, organizations must equip themselves with the set of tools to be proactive in blocking and defending themselves against such threats. Organizations in the financial and payment processing sector are unfortunately targeted at a higher rate than others, simply due to the…
Circumventing Mobile Fraud Protections
With many payment channels, bad actors seek to take advantage of vulnerabilities to secure goods or funds at little to no cost to them; the same holds true for mobile payment applications. With each merchant mobile app implementation, different combinations and permutations of entry points for fraudsters arise, and in my experience, it’s the combination…
Data Privacy and the Consumer Relationship
The conversation around data privacy and trust is evolving. In allowing consumers the right to access and the right to delete personal information that a merchant maintains, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was the first sweeping law of its kind. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) followed not long after, and Washington state has…
Whitepaper: Data Privacy
From the Target and Home Depot breaches to Marriott’s most recent breach weeks ago, data breaches are becoming a near-daily part of the standard news cycle. In response to the increasing concern over consumer data privacy, numerous government entities are evaluating and drafting consumer data privacy protection laws. The European Union was a first mover…
CaaS/MaaS – Crime as a Service/Malware as a Service
Technology has always proven to be a double-edged sword throughout history; as the world improves technology standards and efficiency, so do the bad guys. The latest iteration of threats come in the form of what we know today as SaaS, but are re-engineered for malicious purposes and redefined as CaaS (crime as a service). As…
The MYTH of getting robbed from your pocket via Contactless Payments
While navigating on social media, I found a video around contactless fraud. The video warns people to be protective of their wallets as he initiated a contactless transaction with another person who carried his wallet inside his back pocket (you can see the video here). Of course, a video like this can generate reactions that…