Your source for the latest technology information of interest to community banks across America.
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter and stay on top of the latest technology trends in Hardware, Software, ATMs, Biometrics, Wireless, Online Banking, Marketing, Security, Internet Access and Call Centers.
WatchGuard Launches New Tabletop UTM Appliances
WatchGuard Technologies announced hardware upgrades for the Firebox T Series of unified threat management (UTM) appliances. The throughput improvements and added features in WatchGuard’s new T15, T35 and T55 tabletop appliances allow users at small offices and distributed enterprises to run full UTM features, including APT Blocker, TDR, IPS, Anti-Virus, and Application Control.
Microsoft's New Hardware/firmware Security Standards Promise "Highly Secure" Windows 10 Devices
A new list of hardware and firmware standards released by Microsoft outlines some lofty requirements for a Windows system to be considered highly secure. For those in the enterprise this may require hardware and software upgrades, and companies that produce firmware will need to ensure compatibility with some of the more advanced features of Windows' built-in security systems.
What to Consider When Deploying a Next-Generation Firewall
Firewalls have become ubiquitous across enterprises over the past decade, but the combination of new and varied access methods combined with increasingly sophisticated attacks has forced security professionals to constantly evaluate their defenses. Typically, firewalls are on a five-year refresh cycle, according to Gartner, and that gives organizations the opportunity to evaluate fairly regularly what type of firewall and what features best suit their needs.
~~~
What Are Shielded Virtual Machines and How to Set Them Up
Virtualization can expose data and encryption keys to hackers. Microsoft's shielded virtual machines and Host Guardian Service locks them down. A shielded VM protects against inspection, theft, and tampering from both malware and data center administrators, including fabric administrators, storage administrators, virtualization host administrators, and other network administrators. This article explains how a shielded VM works.
The Top 5 Problems with Blockchain
While blockchain appears ready to upend business processes and trust models across a myriad of industries, it's still in its early days and the various iterations of the distributed ledger already in use are far from vetted. While the technology has great potential, CIOs and their business counterparts who are exploring blockchain should expect setbacks in deploying it, including the real possibility of serious software bugs and risks posed by quantum computing, according to a new report from Forrester Research. Experts and analysts also warn that the technology isn't a fit for every transactional business process.
Build an Ultra-Secure Microsoft Exchange Server
Yes, it's possible to do a Microsoft Exchange Server deployment that is secure enough for all but the most sensitive information. This article covers how to do it.
~~~
Testing an ATM Cash On-Call Service
The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ "Cash Car" will serve customers in rural Japan, where permanent ATM placement is not practical. The bank has a mobile app in the works that will allow customers to request that the ATM be brought directly to them for a cash withdrawal. The car also will be used as a temporary mobile ATM at special event venues.
Cardless ATMs: Best Practices to Support Cardless ATM Innovation
A number of major financial institutions are continuing to innovate with their cardless ATM capabilities, allowing users to withdraw money from an ATM using a mobile app to initiate the transaction. Many financial institutions view cardless ATMs as a way to improve the user experience by eliminating the need to carry and replace cards, which can be easily lost or compromised, as well as reduce the cost to the institution to replace them.
~~~
Embracing Change: Why Mobile Payments Are More Secure than You Think
Mobile payments are starting to gain a foothold in the U.S. More and more retailers are enabling consumers to use technologies such as Android Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay. However, these payment apps are still relatively unknown and highly underutilized. Thge author contends that mobile payment technologies are much more secure than consumers carrying physical cards in their wallets, purses or pockets.
The Wild West of Mobile Banking Needs to Be Tamed
Inside Secure and UL revealed at the annual Mobey Day in Barcelona the findings of their joint research into the state of security of mobile banking applications. The results should serve as a wake-up call for the entire banking industry to raise their sense of urgency on increasing security. They analyzed publicly available m-banking applications and their results revealed that mobile banking was the weak link in most FIs’ security infrastructure.
Apple Launches P2P Payments, Competing with Zelle, Venmo
Apple has launched its person-to-person payments service in the U.S. The feature lets users send and receive money through iMessage. Apple’s payments offering is now available in iOS 11.2 beta. Users will notice an Apple Pay button in their iMessage. Through iMessage, money will be transferred instantly to another user’s Apple Wallet, in the form of a virtual card called Apple Pay Cash Card, for which Apple has partnered with prepaid card company Green Dot.
~~~
Hypervisors: Now a Tool to Protect Against Security Blind Spots
By facilitating live introspection of virtual machine memory, the Xen Project is striving to eliminate stealthy attack techniques like EternalBlue.
Makers of New Virtualization-Based Security Product Claim It Can Fend off Attacks the OS Can't See
A new offering from Bracket Computing claims to safeguard operating systems from persistent attacks, like those that hit Sony, Target, and Equifax. To help combat persistent attacks, Bracket Computing released a feature called Server Guard for its security software solution that provides defense by safeguarding the critical parts of an operating system while on disk, and also while running in memory.
~~~
Core Systems:
Implementing Growth Strategies with the Help of Core Systems
 |
 |
~~~
Gen Z Research Reveals Financial Savvy, Counterintuitive Banking Preferences
New research from Raddon reveals several counterintuitive findings on the financial behaviors and preferences of Generation Z. The research finds that 56 percent of Gen Z respondents believe programs or seminars from financial institutions are very or extremely important sources of personal finance information.
~~~
Online Banking/E-Commerce/Website Design
PayPal Leads as Most Trusted Financial Services Brand
The financial services industry has been dealing with trust issues ever since the meltdown in 2008. According to the latest Landor Pulse — an analysis conducted by global brand strategy and design firm Landor — many FIs are still struggling to regain that trust. Credit card brands, for the most part, scored higher than retail banks, with online payments brand PayPal was the clear leader.
Biometric Payment Cards to Boost Banking Industry Security
ABI Research finds that biometric technologies are steadily growing their presence in more banking applications, with embedded fingerprint sensor payment cards being the latest addition finally ready to go public. Fingerprint embedded payment cards will enjoy an impressive growth over the next years reaching 160 million shipments by 2022 with a 5-year CAGR standing at approximately 400%. Mastercard is at the helm, leading this biometric wave in payment cards. Other key vendors include FPC, Gemalto, IDEMIA, Next Biometrics and Zwipe.
Expect Prepaid to Grow, but with Fewer Cards, Mercator Says
According to a recent Mercator report authored by Sue Brown, director of prepaid debit advisory service at Mercator Advisory Group, closed-loop prepaid loads in the U.S. are predicted to grow at a 2% compound annual growth rate, reaching $346 billion by 2020. And, according to another Mercator report on open-loop cards, that number will grow 5% through 2020 to $352.6 billion.
~~~
New IBM Platform Turns Your Data Center into a Cloud
IBM Cloud Private takes middleware and other legacy applications, places them inside Kubernetes containers and transforms them into contemporary applications using Kubernetes container orchestration. The software itself is already containerized, including IBM tools and most major open source databases.
The Firewall: Questions Abound About Its Future Role in Cloud, Mobile and SDN Environments
It’s been 20 years since Check Point Software Technologies shipped its first enterprise network firewall, marking the beginning of a mass market for firewalls that has protected millions of networks across the world. Some observers argue that that RASP — described as an instrumentation of runtime in servers or clients to protect applications against a variety of attacks — is basically a better approach than traditional firewalls because the perimeter is dissolving due to cloud services and mobile.
Riverbed Enhances Its SD-WAN Performance-Monitoring Platform
The new version of SteelCentral provides an end-to-end view of the user experience, monitoring applications, network traffic, devices and infrastructure from one console. Also new with this release: integration with ServiceNow, the de facto standard in IT Service Management.
~~~
10 Scheduling Strategies to Optimize Your Workforce
Whatever your staffing challenges are, take some time to review how you're balancing all the moving pieces. There is no right or wrong way to approach scheduling, only better ones. This article looks at ten workforce strategies to help optimize your workforce.
~~~
