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Saturday, December 1, 2012

Ways That Credit Card Fraud Can Affect Business

Credit card fraud is not an occurrence without its share of repercussions. If you run a business, then you know this in a hurry. But what options do you have? After all, you don't want to move to cash and check only, because you limit the convenience to your customers and the reach of your business's profitability. It's far better to enter the shark infested waters of commerce and fight to be the top fish in the sea. To do so, you'll need to be mindful of the ways that thieves operate, and you'll need to stay ahead of the game when it comes to defeating their efforts. If not, here are some ways that credit card fraud can affect your business for the worst:

1) Chargeback results

Chargebacks are perhaps a business owner's worst nightmare because they represent a sale lost along with missing merchandise. When a chargeback victimizes a business, it means that business will not be getting the money for the merchandise, and it will also lose the merchandise itself so the possibility of eventually getting a sale on that particular item are null and void. Chargebacks occur more often than anyone would prefer for them to, on account that many businesses are not equipped to deal with the issues of alerts and warnings. They cut corners on technology, and as a result they receive outdated information that could have helped them avoid the transaction altogether.

2) Bad reputation

If you burn your potential customers by serving the people, who are stealing and using their cards, then you quickly develop a reputation as a business that is lax on customer protection. If a person does not feel safe doing business with your company, then he won't. But the carnage doesn't end there. A dissatisfied or scorned potential customer will tell 10 others not to do business with you, and pretty soon your loss of one transaction becomes a loss of 11. Proactivity is a much better suggestion if you are looking to accept credit and debit cards for your business.

3) Diminishing sales

The harder that you lose the fight against credit card fraud, the fewer sales that you will end up making, and that will ultimately kill your business. While credit card fraud may only take up a small percentage of the transactions that you encounter on a given day, how you deal with them is of the utmost importance. Fraud is like a cancer to a business. Refusal to treat it will only result in the spread of its damaging effects.

When you take a proactive stance, you stand in favor of your customers, and when they see that, you will have more of them to stand up for.

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How To Prevent Credit Card Fraud Online

Preventing credit card fraud online can be very challenging, even more so than brick and mortar credit card fraud, if you are not using the right tools for the job. What makes it inherently more difficult to stop credit card fraud online is that you are not in the physical presence of the thief. You have no photo ID to compare to the face behind the credit card, and as such, you have to rely on more technologically sound methods to detect and prevent. Unfortunately, technology is not foolproof, especially if you are playing with the wrong bank identification number database.

Preventing credit card fraud starts with establishing identification. While many people rely on the three digit code on the back of the card as proof that the person using the card actually has ownership of it, this doesn't prevent against lost or stolen cards. While a bin database purports to stay on top of card numbers that are being used in questionable ways, many fail to keep their rolls updated the way that they should. Keeping a good database costs money, and many companies would rather inflate their profit margins and leave you in danger of chargebacks, rather than pour in the necessary resources to run a good product. Be leery of those businesses that are able to severely undersell their competition.

If you run an online business, then you must, must, must, invest in a reputable bin database. That's the only way you'll be able to tell if the customer has put any holds on the card because of a lost or stolen criteria. It is your responsibility to make sure that you know about these measures, even as it is the customer's responsibility to report their card lost or stolen the moment it comes to their attention. Just like customers may be financially liable for forgetting to do so, you could lose the merchandise and the sale if you do not follow due diligence as well.

So the key to preventing credit card fraud online is that you must invest in the safety of your business, not only for your customer's well being, but your own as well. The economy is far too tough for you to be reckless with business practices, and if you do go the extra mile to protect against online fraud, then you will likely make it back through consumer confidence and a higher number of completed transactions. And with each new transaction that comes your way, that's more profit you can add to the bottom line. It really is a win-win when you lash out against fraud. And in the online world, you'll need to be ever more vigilant against the perpetrators of these crimes.

Network Security for Businesses Handling Credit Cards

Network security is required for businesses and organizations with electronic record systems. As card payments are an increasingly-popular option for such entities of all sizes, network security is imperative. Such establishments, in order to be compliant in this regards, must follow PCI security standards.

Standards for credit card network security are the PCI DSS. As tools and measurements for ensuring safe handling of information, PCI DSS serves as the framework for developing an account data security process, which encompasses prevention, detection, and reaction to security breaches. Compliance with these standards is crucial, as a secure system shows customers can trust your business and secures your reputation with acquirers and payment brands. As with all network security standards, compliance with PCI DSS is ongoing, and a business utilizing credit cards must always be on top of the latest threats.

As the technical and operational requirements for protecting cardholder data, PCI security standards are managed by the PCI Security Standards Council and enforced by the payment card brands. Much like any network security policy, PCI security standards require such businesses to assess their systems and submit reports. For the former, a network security professional must identify cardholder data, take inventory of all related business processes, and analyze the system for vulnerabilities. Such an individual not only offers solutions for fixing vulnerabilities but also needs to check that the system does not share cardholder data unless necessary.

Reporting involves submitting remediation validation records and submitting compliance reports to banks and card brands with which a company does business.

Businesses taking credit cards aren't the only entities required to follow such network security standards. Software vendors must abide by the Payment Application Data Security Standard. Geared specifically toward developing payment applications and store and process cardholder data, PA-DSS standards fall in with PCI-DSS compliance, with both assisting with minimizing security breaches and corresponding damage. However, companies that internally develop their own payment applications do not need to follow PA-DSS. Instead, PCI-DSS is the corresponding set of standards in this regards.

Although PCI-DSS has several standards, 3.3 is particularly important. This requirement specifies that a full credit card number, or PAN, be masked unless the viewing party has a specific need to see the full number, such as to see if all appropriate digits were entered for a transaction. Additionally, 3.3 states that webpage timeouts may be used to prevent credit card numbers from being exposed and that SSL needs to be embedded to secure any entered data.

Are Static Passwords Obsolete? The Rise of One Time Passwords

With the introduction of new ways of authenticating a user such as face recognition, fingerprint scanning, retina scans, and puzzle solving; regular static passwords are becoming less secure and cumbersome for users to remember. When the internet first started, it was exciting to have a strong and hard to guess password for your emails, but now these same types of passwords can be easily guessed and hacked into.

More and more users are using online banking, making financial transactions, purchasing things online on their tablets, and putting sensitive information on the web. Ordinary passwords just aren't as secure enough to protect users against malware and hackers. With all these sites and logins that we have, it gets harder and harder to remember all these usernames and passwords. It's not only the security that is of question, but also the costs associated with it. We rarely think about how much it costs to reset a password if it's lost, stolen, or forgotten, but someone or some company is always responsible to reset passwords and send users a new one. Industry reports show that an average cost of resetting a password is $30.

One time passwords are a great way to protect users from fraud and malware, especially if combined with an out of band authentication method. Banking and financial institutions use one time passwords to secure their user logins using an out of band authentication method. How it works is a user enters in their login credentials and their mobile phone is sent a one-time password from an outside server. Once the user receives the password on their mobile phone, they enter it into the website they are trying to gain access to and access is granted if the one time password is correct. This is one of the best ways to authenticate a user because the password is sent to a user's mobile phone. This is type of authentication method doesn't require a user to carry additional hardware or even install additional software on their cell phone to use which makes it more convenient than hardware tokens. It's also a great way to authenticate a user because most users have their cell phones on them all the time.

Google also uses one-time passwords and sends them to their users if a user is logging in from a separate IP address than the one usually used if the user requests for this service. One time passwords aren't just as secure as they used to be even though they're still widely used and one time passwords are going to be the future of authentication and securing user's sensitive data.

Network Computer Security Risks Faced by the Corporate Users

Network administrators are surrounded today with a growing list of security risks and analysts are faced with not just one crisis but more while accessing servers. Dealing with such security risks is an overwhelming job and everyday, as these risks multiply, they are affecting more and more corporate lives.

Cyber security still has to keep worms, Trojans and viruses at bay, provided by many hackers and cyber criminals over the years. Despite the threat of cyber-terrorism, employers, as well as employees who use instant messengers and those who download featured movies and other applications increase their risk of being attacked by viruses.

Here is the list of the risk factors involved which the network security company should guard themselves against:

· Email attachments- when employees open attachments, especially unknown ones, they allow a worm or a virus to enter the corporate network. The latest worms can make their way into the system even without clicking a link to them.

· Blended attacks- viruses and worms are becoming more and more complicated and a single virus or worm can attack more than one platform.

· Downloading from websites- the employees frequently misuse the network access at their work place by downloading too many things like games, movies, music, etc. It creates a platform for the viruses to attack and they can use up most of the bandwidth.

· By renaming documents-when an employee saves critical business information under a different file name, the monitoring software that regularly checks the emails leaving the company might fail to recognize the saved information under the different name.

· Music and video browsers- these are browsers that automatically connect the user with the related websites without the user's permission. If a music browser knows a user's interest, it can automatically connect the user to the related sites and execute the applications that could put the networks at risk and potentially use a huge portion of the bandwidth.

There are other network security risks that can cause disastrous effects to the server and automatically damage a huge amount of online corporate functionalities. To prevent these damages, the employees and the employers need to avoid all of the risks associated with network security. The network security company, with the use of intrusion detection system (IDS) and intrusion prevention system (IPS) can ensure an effective network security for your organization so that you can perform effectively and safely.

Network security companies have a large number of dedicated security teams that can effectively install next generation firewalls that can protect your server from hackers and cyber criminals. Moreover, with the help of the expanded firewall protection, the server can then create a good network administration. To find the best network security company, you could search online for the one that best suits your needs and requirements.

Mobile Or Not - The Technical Differences Between Mobile And Stay At Home Security

Over the last few years there has been an increase in the presences of the "Mobile" offerings of websites. Many have "Mobile versions now, and there are even many "Mobile versions of games, and the "Mobile" revolution has increased the popularity of the "App." But aside from the way a page or game displays on the mobile device, many people don't realize the other technological differences in these programs, and this is never more apparent than when mobile users question the experts. On these websites there is a much more detailed version of this explanation of the differences, but in a nutshell, here is why many standard programs and apps may not work very well on a mobile device.

Identifying The Target Computer

Security expert, Michael Maxstead, explains that PPTP, IPSec, and SSL all use the IP address of the computer on the other end of the tunnel to identify that the computer it is communicating with is the correct device. And this is perfect for a device that is stationary... an at home PC, hotel LANs, and even the occasional WiFi hot-spot. But, when this connection point changes often, for example, many mobile devices will have 3 and 4G connections using the cell towers along with these "Hot-spots" and wireless AP's. And will "hop" from connection point to connection point quickly. A standard VPN client isn't designed with these constant changes in mind, so many disconnects and AP changes causes crashes, time-outs and tunnel breaks.

The Mobile VPN Client

According to Mr. Maxstead, a mobile VPN solution from a provider like IPVanish, or Hide-My-Ass, wouldn't rely on the connection point, (AP,) IP address. But instead assigns a logical IP address to the mobile device that will stay with the device, rather than the AP which changes so often. It is in this way that a VPN becomes transparent in its communications. Otherwise there would be a lot of disconnects, reconnection, and re-authentications. With a logical IP address the mobile unit can seamlessly move from one wireless AP to another: Change from 4G to 3G, or even the slower 2G connection, change from wireless coverage to a WiFi hot-spot, and even change from any of the above to a docked port.

Mobility A Little More Complicated Internally

But the seamless way in which a mobile device handles the changing AP's really makes the clients worth the extra expense often incurred when purchasing a VPN service that has mobile technology clients, claims the security CEO. "I have personally seen a few people who tried to use the same client as they use on their desktop to no avail. It invariably takes hours fixing the device removing the client," during which he takes the opportunity to explain why it didn't work...