Data security

As blockchain becomes increasingly popular, heightened levels of data protection and customer awareness of its use become a reality, writes Abhishek Pitti, CEO of Nucleus Vision.

The heads of some of the largest U.S. banks are calling for a new security-focused mindset among executives, better forms of ID and collective action in the aftermath of the Equifax breach.

The new vice chairman of supervision at the Fed said the agency will seek comment on its rules for stress tests, capital and other areas, as well as look at how fintech has impacted the industry.

Four executives who sold stock after the company discovered a security breach had no knowledge of the incident when they made the trades, the company said. However, the status of federal investigations is unclear.

The Minnesota league follows on the heels of Pennsylvania, Nebraska and the Mountain West CU Association, all of whom joined the suit this week.

Jeanne Tisinger spent three decades working at the CIA, where her most recent position was deputy director overseeing the agency’s physical and cybersecurity and information technology spanning more than 100 countries.

Finance organizations serious about protecting their customers need two-factor authentication, which involves the mobile phone when logging in to transfer money, writes Michael Patterson, CEO of Plixer.

Readers weigh in on a blockchain-based credit bureau, react to the CFPB’s arbitration rule and chime in on calls to invest more in women.

American Express will launch its next generation of online authentication system, SafeKey 2.0, early next year with support for biometrics technology and mobile commerce.

As retailers look to bring payments in-house, there are various approaches to consider, writes André Stoorvogel, director of product marketing for payments at Rambus.

Eight leagues/associations now are part of class action response to massive hack, with two leagues – representing CUs in Nebraska, Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming – joining on Halloween.

Calls for less reliance on credit bureaus and Social Security numbers for verification are leading many to envision a future of identity on a distributed ledger.

The U.K. Financial Conduct Authority opened an investigation into the hack of credit reporting company Equifax Ltd. that saw personal data stolen from at least 143 million people.

The Clearing House has become one of the first Mastercard-certified, third-party token service providers on behalf of issuing banks.

KRACK, combined with other attacks, allows for the reading of pain text username, passwords, credit card numbers as well as the injection of code including ransomware, writes Timothy Crosby, senior security consultant for Spohn.

Equifax continues work to add new security features and restore full access to The Work Number following a report highlighting potential security vulnerabilities in a browser-based portal of its employment verification service.

The answer is to change the authentication framework altogether with new technologies that employ passive biometrics and behavioral analytics, writes Ryan Wilk, vice president of customer success at NuData Security.

The problem could be even worse this year, thanks to a new round of consumer data breaches, including the huge Equifax breach that exposed protected data on more than 145 million Americans, writes Rafael, executive vice president at ClearSale.

As incidents such as the Equifax breach create more urgency to move beyond static identifiers and authentication methods, Visa is getting aggressive about pushing dynamic tools to vet and shield identity.

The nonbinding guidance, which followed a nearly yearlong inquiry about industry practices, said consumers should have greater ability to obtain information about their financial data, among other principles.