Government Housing for Ex FNMA Worker?
A Fannie Mae contractor who was fired last fall for writing erroneous code has been charged with planting a virus designed to destroy all of the data on the GSE's servers, a plot that could have cost the agency millions of dollars in damages and a week of downtime. Rajendrasinh B. Makwana plead not guilty in February in U.S. District Court in Baltimore to one count of computer intrusion, a charge that carries a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
Tapping The Fear of Data Breaches
Hoping to cash in on industry and consumer skittishness borne of data compromises, HomeATM ePayment Solutions is piloting a reader that shoppers can plug into their USB ports. When making a PIN debit purchase online, the consumer swipes his or her card and enters the PIN. Called the SafeTPIN, the Montreal-based tech vendor also says the product will allow merchants to process payments at less costly card-present interchange rates.
No Recession for ACH Transactions
NACHA says the number of ACH payments in fourth quarter 2008 grew by 5.5 percent over the same period in 2007, topping 3.8 billion. Strong growth was also reported for Internet-initiated ACH payments (WEB transactions), which grew 16.5 percent over fourth quarter 2007. And the number of business-to-business payments in which remittance information is exchanged electronically (called CTX entries) grew by 15 percent year over year.
