June 13th, 2014 by Elma Jane
A couple of teenage boys spent one school lunch break last week hacking into a Bank of Montreal cash machine.
After finding an old ATM service manual online, Matthew Hewlett and Caleb Turon decided to head to their nearest BMO machine at a Safeway store in their hometown of Winnipeg, when the boys tried to get into the system they were asked for a password. Taking a punt on a commonly used default, they were shocked to see their attempt work. Instead of trying to clear the machine out, the pair made their way to the nearest BMO branch to flag the security risk but, staff did not believe them. So both went back to the ATM and got into the operator mode again, then started printing off documentation like how much money is currently in the machine, how many withdrawals have happened that day and how much it’s made off surcharges. The teenagers even changed the machine’s greeting screen from Welcome to the BMO ATM to Go away. This ATM has been hacked. When they returned to the BMO branch with documentation of their hack, the branch manager vowed to contact security. The bank has since taken steps to prevent a repeat but insists that customer data was never at risk.
Posted in Credit Card Security, Payment Card Industry PCI Security Tagged with: atm, Bank of Montreal, cash machine, customer data, hacking, password, Security, security risk
May 9th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Email is an indispensable part of running any business, it is so important. It’s often the best and least intrusive way to communicate with employees, colleagues and collaborators. Not all email platforms are equal, it’s important to choose one with the right email service and features your business need, also to avoid overpaying for features that you don’t need.
Factors to consider before settling on an email platform for your business.
Bonus Features
Once you’ve found an email service that covers all the basics, check for additional features that can boost your productivity. Some platforms such as Gmail and Outlook includes integrated video chat. That means you can use a single service for both exchanging messages and meeting remotely, making your day-to-day operations simpler and more efficient. Some email platforms also include instant messaging functionality. Instant messaging is better than email for real-time discussions, since you can exchange numerous short messages in rapid succession. Sending an instant message may be preferable to sending an email if the content of your message is not that important
Collaboration Tools
Good business email platform makes it easier for you to work together with your employees or colleagues. The best platforms include tools to help you collaborate. Services such as Gmail and Outlook include a built-in-calendar as part of your email inbox, in a few simple steps you can share your calendar with others so they can view and edit it on the fly. That can really help with planning and collaboration. Email threading is another feature that can help you work together with colleagues. Threaded emails make it easier to follow long exchanges because replies appear one after another in a single thread, instead of being spread throughout your inbox in the order they were received.
Free or Paid??
One thing you can’t get with a free Web mail service is the ability to use your brand’s name as part of your email address. Registering for a free Gmail account gives you an email address like [username]@gmail.com; but by subscribing to Google Apps for Business, you can secure an email address that reads [username]@[yourbusiness].com. In most cases, you’ll need to already own your own Web domain in order to use it as part of your email address, but registering a domain can cost as little as $10 per year. Services such as Microsoft Office 365, give you your own domain name without the need to pay additional hosting fees.
Security
Whether you pay for email or use a free service, you’ll want tight security for your business inbox especially if running your business involves the exchange of private client data and other sensitive data can be attached to your email account, such as bank account numbers and tax returns. Even more than with your personal email, it’s important to keep cyber criminals out of your business account. Before settling on an email service, check for common-sense security measures such as spam and phishing filters. Support for two-factor authentication is also important. The feature helps keep outsiders out of your inbox by requiring users to have two pieces of information to sign in. The first is your regular password and the second is a freshly generated code sent to either your mobile phone or a second email address. Other security features to check for include built-in antivirus measures to keep malware off your computer, which is especially important if you download a lot of attachments. Whether or not it’s important for you (and any employees) to have a branded email address is ultimately up to you. An email address that includes your own domain name can potentially boost the perceived credibility of your business. On the other hand, a generic email address might be fine for the smallest businesses, especially if you are a sole proprietor.
Storage Space
A branded email address isn’t the only advantage of a paid email service. Paid platforms offer plenty of other perks, such as expanded cloud storage for email and other files. Many free email services offer limited storagespace, forcing you to delete messages when your inbox gets full. If you run a small business that relies heavily on email and you prefer to archive messages rather than delete them, your inbox can fill up in a hurry. By subscribing to a paid service, you can gain access to a much bigger inbox. There are a few other related concerns to consider. The maximum size of an email attachment varies widely between different services, with some services capping attachments at 10GB and others letting you send huge files up to 300GB or more, as long as the file is already uploaded to the cloud.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: antivirus, bank account, business account, chat, client data, cloud, code, computer, data, domain, email, email address, email inbox, email platforms, email service, Email threading, gmail, Gmail account, Gmail and Outlook, Google Apps, hosting, hosting fees, Instant messaging, Malware, messaging, Microsoft, Microsoft Office, mobile, mobile phone, password, personal email, phishing filters, phone, platforms, Security, security features, spam, spam and phishing, tax, tax returns, threading, video chat, Web domain, Web mail, Web mail service
March 17th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Lots of talk has gone on since the recent spate of merchant data breaches on ways to potentially prevent hackers from gaining access to stored payment card data. Use of biometric information, such as a fingerprint, to access stored credentials is among the solutions often bandied about.
The prospects of using individuals’ biometric information for credentialing is fairly scary. Security may be what biometrics is trying to achieve, but it’s also its biggest flaw. Imagine having your fingerprint information stored at Target this holiday season, that information would now be in the hands of lots of people not intended to have access to it. Unlike a password, someone can’t change his or her fingerprint. So once someone has the print, they have it forever. So even if something is biometric based, it also has to have a lot of other security measures, and that could include GPS-based location services tied to an individual’s smartphone.
Biometrics alone won’t work. It’s very scary that that information could be stored in a way that someone could figure out how to get it. Even if encrypted, that’s a huge security concern. You can’t change your fingerprint.
Posted in Credit card Processing, Credit Card Security, Electronic Payments, Payment Card Industry PCI Security, Smartphone Tagged with: biometric, card data, credentialing, encrypted, fingerprint, gaining access, gps-based, merchant data breaches, password, prevent hackers, Security, security measures, smartphone, stored credentials
