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General
News
* AFTECH Adds Transmission Builders FCU to Client
List
* Three British Columbia Credit Unions Renew
Partnerships with Open Solutions Canada
* e-DMZ Security Announces eGuardPost
* L9 Captures CUNA Future Forum's Best of Show
* Brandimensions & Red Cliff Solutions Release
Anti-phishing Program
AFTECH, a provider of core processing services to
credit unions nationwide and a business unit of
Fiserv, Inc., added Transmission Builders Federal
Credit Union, Kokomo, IN, to its Advantage
in-house client list. The 13,500-member credit
union will convert to the AFTECH system in April,
2006. In addition, the credit union will be
offering aftech@net, the Fiserv business unit’s
home banking product, as well as real-time credit
and debit card processing, all backed by AFTECH’s
disaster recovery services.
Open Solutions Canada, a strategic business unit
of Open Solutions Inc., announced that three of
its clients – Grand Forks District Savings,
Operating Engineers and Sharons Credit Unions –
have renewed their data services agreements with
Open Solutions Canada for an additional five
years. The three British Columbia-based credit
unions will continue to obtain mission-critical
enterprise technology from Open Solutions Canada,
as well as additional services, including multiple
access channels such as teller, telephone and
Internet banking.
e-DMZ Security, a provider of Co-Managed Firewall
and Intrusion Detection Services and innovative
security products, announced the release of
eGuardPost version 1.1, a purpose built stand
alone security management appliance that provides
a control point for managing system administrator
remote connections for protected environments.
eGuardPost provides a complete session capture for
Windows and Unix sessions, providing full
accountability and controlling remote vendor
access.
L9.com, a Credit Union Service Organization formed
to advance the online channel for credit unions of
all sizes, has won the 2005 CUNA Future Forum Best
of Show award. The credit union service
organization (CUSO) offers a layered antiphishing
security solution.
Brandimensions Inc., a leader in the online brand
protection and market intelligence industries, and
Red Cliff Solutions, a provider of Internet
Security solutions, announced CounterPhish, an
anti-phishing incident response program
specifically designed for credit unions. Developed
through a joint partnership, CounterPhish provides
credit unions with the technology and best
practices to effectively counter the ongoing
threat of phishing and identity theft.
CounterPhish is available though Red Cliff’s
service offerings.
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Hardware
News
IBM just introduced a new server for very small
businesses: the new x100 comes with a Celeron
processor, and has a starting price of $599; a
dual-core Pentium 4 lifts the price to $999. IBM
also upgraded its x206 and its rack-mountable
cousin, the x306. Differences of the new models,
the x206m and x306m, include the addition of an
integrated management controller, redundant and
hot-swappable power supplies so the components can
be changed without shutting the server down, and,
in the x206m, the addition of a fourth hard drive
to make higher-end RAID (redundant array of
inexpensive disk) technology more feasible. The
x206m has an entry price of $679, but dual-core
models with hot-swap drives and 1GB of memory cost
about $1,700. The x306m starts at $1,099 and moves
to $1,759 for a dual-core Pentium 4.
Microsoft has released their Data Protection
Manager (DPM) package and a whole slew of hardware
backup vendors are in line to help you implement
it. Microsoft's DPM takes a series of snapshots of
data that can be recovered by end users and is
part of continuous data protection (CDP), which is
one of the hottest technologies in today's storage
world. There is an ongoing debate over Microsoft's
DPM which is "near CDP" and "true CDP" - find out
more in the November of Credit Union tech-talk
- subscribe today.
Dell, which has long focused on low-cost PCs, has
unveiled a high-end line of computers. Dell's new
XPS brand ships with dual-core Intel processors,
Nvidia graphics cards, hard-disk drives with up to
1 terabyte of data storage, and enhanced
networking capabilities. Desktop pricing begins at
$1,099 with the XPS 400, a slimmer XPS 200 priced
at $1,149 and an XPS 600 starting at $1,849. These
prices include a new 17-inch flat-panel display.
Dell has also added multicore technology to its
single-core dual-socket servers and workstations,
and claims that the new systems provide a maximum
improvement in performance of 53% compared with
the single-core, dual-socket machines they
supersede. The new PowerEdge servers will ship
with Windows Server 2003 operating system and Red
Hat's Enterprise Linux. The PowerEdge 1850 server
and the 1855 blade are both priced from $2,448,
while the PowerEdge 2800 costs from $2,548 and the
PowerEdge 2850 from $2,748. The Precision
workstations will ship with XP Professional and
Red Hat's Enterprise Linux. The Precision 470
costs from $2,479, while the Precision 670 is
priced from $2,779.
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Software
Updates
Remote display technologies, such as Citrix
Metaframe Presentation Server (MPS), are often
associated with larger organizations that have the
staff, budget and infrastructure to deploy
server-centric solutions. However, with the
introduction of Citrix Access Essentials (CAE)
even smaller credit unions should be able to
afford and use the technology. CAE is designed
exclusively for small and midsize businesses and
promises the power of MPS without overworking your
staff or breaking your limited budget. Find out
more in the November issue of Credit Union
tech-talk - subscribe today.
Bloor Research is reporting that one-third of
banks worldwide are planning to replace their core
IT systems in the next five years. The goal is to
replace legacy systems and their product-centric
silos. They note that smaller institutions that
lack the payments capabilities or resources of
larger institutions can reduce their costs by
using a service-oriented architecture (SOA) to
migrate legacy silos and application stacks to a
modular, scalable core platform. According to the
Gartner Group, by 2008 SOA will provide the basis
for 80 per cent of development projects.
According to Laptop Magazine and PC World, Sunbelt
Software CounterSpy 1.0 ($20) is the most
effective remover of spyware for individual PC
users. Their enterprise edition, CounterSpy
Enterprise ($255 for 10 machines), is also
top-rated by eWeek, Windows IT Pro, and Network
Computing Magazine.
CLARIFICATION: In last week's newsletter in this
spot we ran piece on the extension of Daylight
Saving Time. While it was enacted this Summer, it
will not go into effect until 2007 at the
earliest. This should provide plenty of time to
address any issues that could possibly appear with
the change. Sorry for any confusion that this may
have caused!
Software Section Sponsored by
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--"We've enhanced our knowledge about our members, household trends, key profitability areas and growth strategies. We're looking forward to continued success in the future!”, Linda S. Brown, Senior VP of Member Services, Service 1st FCU
--"iNTEGRATOR has proven to be a worthy addition to our marketing department. With iNTEGRATOR we are able to target market more efficiently which has resulted in higher than average response rates on our campaigns.", Kari
Hullinger, Marketing Director, Marion School Employees FCU
--"I absolutely appreciate the continually improving and excellent services, resources, and support RFG provides to our industry.", M. Louise
Ortlinghaus, Vice President Operations, Kaiperm FCU
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ATMs/Kiosks
At last week's CUNA Future Forum, ArcaTech Systems
had their Arca8000 Currency Recycler on display.
The Arca8000 is a high-volume, large-capacity
"bills-in/bills-out" recycler designed to control
incoming and outgoing cash transactions. The unit
automatically accepts, counts, sorts and securely
stores currency.
Visa's global ATM network is now over 1 million
machines. Visa has ATMs available to cardholders
in more than 160 countries, and ATM transactions
surpassed one billion for the first time in 2004,
representing more than $87.5 billion in cash
withdrawals.
Wachovia is offering students at the University of
North Carolina, Greensboro, and at Mercer
University a student ID card that is also an ATM
card and Visa-branded debit card. The program,
called One Card Plus, appears to be one of the
first cards that combines a student ID with a
Visa-branded debit and ATM capacity, which also
lets students purchase outside the closed campus.
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ATMs/Kiosks Section Sponsored by
Nationwide Money Services
|
Looking to increase Brand Recognition and provide members with
surcharge free ATMs?
Nationwide Money Services, Inc.’s Branded Cash Program is the answer. Fully endorsed by the VA Credit Union League and the CU 24 Network, our Branded Cash Program provides the ATM equipment, great locations, processing, maintenance, insurance, marketing rights and surcharge free transactions for your members, you only provide the cash and cash services for the ATM just as you would if you owned them. The ATMs look and act like your own, extending your reach or filling out your current market.
Our current CU partners include: AEDC, Beacon, Bronco, Carolina Collegiate, Educators, Freedom First, Food Lion Credit Association, Heritage Trust, Martinsville
Dupont, NSWC, Old Hickory, Peoples Advantage, Southeast Financial and US Courthouse.
NMS also offers their ‘ATMs Made Easy’ Program for full service ATM management and placement services if you like the idea of having ATMs, but don’t want the hassle of day to day management and the associated costs for maintenance and unplanned expenses like triple DES.
For more information about the Branded Cash Program contact Bob Colabrese, EVP of Sales & Marketing
at:
904-395-1147 or
bob.colabrese@GLXS.biz
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American Power
Conversion announced a new PCMCIA card with a
personal fingerprint scanner that manages laptop
users' login and password information. The PCMCIA
Password Manager card fits in a notebook
computer's PCMCIA slot, and the sensor hides away
inside the notebook until a user needs it to log
onto applications or websites. The sensor ejects
from the side of the laptop with a press of a
finger. The unit retails for $150.
The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi is deploying a
biometric security system based on hand
vein-pattern recognition technology from Hitachi.
They just started issuing Visa credit cards with
embedded integrated circuits that contain customer
vein pattern information. The Japanese Post Office
is also expected to install the vein-reading
systems across its branch network next year.
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Wireless
World
As noted over the
past couple of weeks, satellite phones worked well
during Hurricane Katrina and its immediate
aftermath. Now, satellite communication provider
Inmarsat said it has filed a petition with the FCC
asking for authorization to provide Mobile
Satellite Services (MSS) by 2010. The service will
use a spacecraft operating in the 2 GHz band.
Globalstar and Iridium already provide satellite
phone service in the US, but critics say that they
do not have terrestrial repeaters so their service
is expensive and the coverage often limited to the
outdoors. Inmarsat is near completion of its $1.5
billion Inmarsat-4 satellite project, and the
company is working on a next generation MSS system
and multimedia services across a hybrid
satellite-terrestrial architecture.
Just in time for the holidays, Apple is expected
to come out with an iPod that can not only play
music, but also act as a cell phone, deliver video
on demand, and possible even make payments.
Wireless payments could be possible due to the
fact that the new iPod will have an RFID chip in
it, the same kind of device that is used in
contactless payment cards.
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Security
Section
In ongoing efforts to stay ahead of tech-savvy
counterfeiters, Treasury Secretary John Snow
unveiled the government’s newly redesigned $10
bill, the third currency denomination to add
splashes of color (red, yellow and orange) to the
traditional green. Some 800 million of the new
bills will be put into circulation starting early
next year. The makeover of the $10 bill follows
similar colorization of the $20 bill in 2003 and
the $50 bill last year. For the $20, the
additional colors were peach and blue, while the
$50 bill has blue and red. The Bureau of Engraving
and Printing, which produces all US paper money,
said the government plans to redesign the currency
every seven to 10 years as part of its
anti-counterfeiting efforts.
Security event manager (SEM) solutions are
designed to track, correlate, and ultimately make
sense of a vast number of events occurring
throughout an enterprise network. SEMs monitor the
logs from security devices such as firewalls;
watch over vulnerabilities uncovered by
vulnerability scanners; and monitor the activities
of operating systems, Web servers, PBXes, and any
other device that resides on the network, as well
as keep an eye on user and administrator
activities. SEMs fall into two broad categories:
appliances and software applications.
Unfortunately, either implementation is fairly
difficult and expensive. Large credit unions with
the need and the budget may want to consider the
following five vendors and their products:
Symantec Security Information Manager 9550; the
Network Intelligence 7550-HA; ArcSight Enterprise
Security Manager; e-Security Sentinel, and
Micromuse Netcool/neuSecure. The first two are
appliances, while the latter three are software
packages that must be installed on a server.
New tools are starting to become available to IT
managers who are looking for ways to protect their
systems from malware while they work to test and
install security patches issued by software
vendors. These tools are designed to buy IT
managers the time they need test patches before
they are released into production. Learn more
about these tools in the November issue of Credit
Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
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Security Section
Sponsored by
e-DMZ Security
|
Securing and Managing Administrative Passwords
How are you currently managing the challenge of securing shared administrative passwords such as Root on UNIX and Administrator on Windows? What about the passwords for your databases, firewalls, routers, and servers?
The Password Auto Repository™ (PAR) was created to provide a comprehensive security solution to protect these mission critical passwords during transmission and while in storage. The solution was built with a dual-control mechanism as well as time and date stamping to track password usage, where passwords are stored, with a history of all versions, and the changes made. This easy-to-use appliance-based solution is offered with a high availability option to allow secure access any time and from anywhere- accommodating both off-hours support staff and outsourced vendors. In addition to securely storing the administrative passwords, PAR also changes the passwords based on time (i.e. every 30 days) as well as usage (i.e. 2 hours after being used).
** From now through December 31, 2005, we are offering Credit Unions a
50% discount on a PAR appliance bundle which includes management for up to 20 servers, a high availability appliance and
maintenance. **
Please email par-info@e-dmzsecurity.com
to schedule a FREE real-time Web Demonstration of the Password Auto Repository
*****************************************
Click here to download a Case Study based on the experience of the School Employees Credit Union of Washington link:
http://www.e-dmzsecurity.com/pdf/e-DMZ_CaseStudy_PAR.pdf
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Leaders
Roundtable
CORE
SYSTEMS:
Using Core Systems for a Competitive Advantage
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Technology
and Marketing
Sage Software, makers of the ACT! contact
management package, targets small and mid-market
firms. Their experience has shown that many
mid-market companies searching for CRM begin with
the essentials of contact management and sales
force automation. They often see their customers
expand their CRM initiatives to include marketing,
customer service and support automation
initiatives. As for failures, lack of user
adoption is the main reason that they are hearing.
If employees don't have good training and the CRM
system does not help them with their daily work,
they will resist change and refuse to use the
system.
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Online
Banking/E-Commerce/Website Design
Atlanta-based Digital Resolve has introduced a new
approach to mutual authentication with the
addition of a Website Authentication Module to its
Fraud Analyst product for online fraud and
identity theft prevention for the financial
services industry. They say that their Fraud
Analyst Website Authentication Module is aimed at
the detection of fake websites and the prevention
of Website spoofing, more specifically
Man-in-the-Middle attacks that involve a cyber
criminal redirecting the consumer from a
legitimate website to the fake server. The firm
says that their Website Authentication Module is
very difficult to defeat and provides protection
against phishing, pharming and man in the middle
attacks without intervention by end users.
Credit unions looking to offer pre-paid gift cards
for the upcoming holiday season may want to take a
look at eFunds' "Card in a Box" program. Using
VISA-branded cards, eFunds says that it will
provide all card issuing, administration, risk
management and processing.
UK bank Lloyds TSB is teaming with Internet
security firm Zone Labs to provide its online
bankers with a free PC security scan and
discounted anti-virus software. Lloyds TSB says
the PC security scan will identify any potentially
suspicious spyware and give users the opportunity
to download and purchase Zone Labs security
software at a 20% discount.
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Internet
Access
According to technology consulting firm Savatar,
service providers have done a poor job in
marketing and selling VoIP (voice over Internet
protocol) to the millions of small to medium
sized businesses (SMB) in the United States,
focusing too much on features rather than the
service's reliability, lower cost and ease of
administration. While 75 percent of the SMBs
surveyed were generally or somewhat familiar
with VoIP, a whopping 25 percent are
"unfamiliar" with VoIP and its advantages and do
not know who to turn to for advice.
More than 60% of Americans who use the Internet
at home now do so with a high-speed connection,
a new study finds. That is a jump from 51% a
year ago. Nielsen/NetRatings says 86 million
Internet users surfed the Web on home broadband
connections in August. Broadband users tend to
spend more time and money online, the report
said.
Utah-based Mountain America Federal Credit Union
has deployed a "Branch of the Future" solution
from Cisco Systems featuring a comprehensive
Cisco IP Communications network. The system
consolidated the credit union’s voice, video,
and data traffic over a single intelligent
converged network. The Cisco IP/VC 3511
Multipoint Control Unit enables the credit union
to host multiparty videoconferences that include
headquarters and branch users. The system works
with a variety of video endpoints, including
Cisco VT Advantage, video phones, and
third-party desktop video systems. Cisco video
telephony is implemented within Cisco
CallManager and enables point-to-point video
calls and multiple videoconferences that are as
easy to set up and use as a phone call. Video
calls are set up through the user's Cisco IP
Phone or SCCP-enabled video endpoint, and
support the same phone features as voice calls.
Two Cisco Unity servers provide support for
advanced unified communications applications,
including voice mail, e-mail, and fax, all of
which can be accessed from a single mailbox.
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Call
Centers
Call center staff turnover is notoriously high,
and so are the costs to hire and train
representatives - some estimates place the number
in the $5000 - $7000 per agent range. Some call
center experts say that after a good pay/benefit
package and the opportunity for advancement, that
training opportunities ranks right up there when
people consider working in your call center. Find
out more about training and the ROI that can be
realized on training in the November issue of
Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe now.
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Conferences
Catch
Tom and Bill Rogers, Associate Editor of Credit Union
tech-talk at the following conferences in
2005:
October 6-8, Naples, FL - Firefighters' National Credit
Union Conference
November 10-12, Orlando, FL - CU InfoTECH Conference
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