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General
News
* North Broward Hospital District FCU Signs with
Summit
* General Electric Employees FCU Selects Symitar
* USERS Draws Over 500 to EdCon 2005
* ScanAlert and L9.com Team Up
* CUVA and Green Armor Solutions Partner
Summit Information Systems, a business unit of
Fiserv Inc. and a leader in delivering advanced
technologies to the credit union industry,
announced that North Broward Hospital District
Federal Credit Union, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, will
implement Summit’s Spectrum core processing
system. The Summit Spectrum Solution will also
introduce workflow automation accessed via a
browser-based user interface, Summit Branch Suite,
in areas such as new account opening, member
identification and product sales.
Symitar, a subsidiary of Jack Henry & Associates,
Inc. that provides credit unions with software
systems and related services, announced that
Connecticut-based General Electric Employees
Federal Credit Union has selected the Episys
platform to provide enterprise-wide automation.
The credit union, which has more than $105 million
in assets and approximately 21,000 members, will
install Episys in-house. In addition to the Episys
core system, General Electric Employees FCU will
initially install a number of Symitar's products,
including the PassPort.pro online authorization
and ATM driving solution, Synergy intelligent
document management, Member Business Services,
Credit Card Processing and Indirect Lending.
USERS Incorporated, a business unit of Fiserv,
Inc., hosted over 500 attendees at EdCon 2005, the
company’s 22nd annual educational conference held
earlier this month. EdCon 2005 offered 24
different educational sessions on timely topics
such as generating fee income through courtesy
pay, commercial processing strategies and Internet
security. The agenda also included a review of
USERS’ 2006 product plans; an update on
enhancements to the browser-based Navigator Suite;
and an update on how the Maestro Projects Group is
helping credit unions improve and speed their
businesses processes, by integrating the many
disparate systems typically used by credit unions
today.
L9.com, a Credit Union Service Organization formed
to advance the online channel for credit unions of
all sizes, and ScanAlert, the world’s largest
website security certification company, have
formed a joint marketing program designed to help
credit unions reduce phishing and hacking threats
to their websites while accelerating the adoption
of online banking by their members. L9.com will
market a bundled offering that combines
ScanAlert’s HACKER SAFE website security
certification service and L9.com’s Safe2Login web
server identity verification service.
CUVA, a leading supplier of identity theft
prevention education tools to credit unions, and
information systems security vendor, Green Armor
Solutions, announced that they will partner to
deliver the patent-pending Identity Cues anti-phishing
system to credit unions. Identity Cues leverages a
unique combination of technology and psychology to
combat phishing, pharming, and other forms of
online fraud - all of which have begun to plague
credit unions.
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Hardware
News
Small and budget conscious credit unions continue
to have many more affordable options for
purchasing both desktops and notebooks. For
example, Lenovo Group, the China-based company
that acquired IBM's PC business, including the
ThinkPad brand, recently unveiled its new Z series
products. A 14-inch widescreen notebook with
100-GB of storage and three USB ports, will start
at just $799. Meanwhile, Gateway unveiled a range
of affordable eMachines notebook and desktop PCs
including an eMachines W4605 notebook at $799, and
five desktops ranging from $339 to $599. At the
high end, the eMachines T6524 has 1GB of memory, a
200GB hard drive, two optical drives and seven USB
2.0 ports. At the low end, the eMachines T3304 has
a Sempron chip, 512MB of memory and five USB
ports.
While large hard drives have recently come down in
price and usually offer more than enough storage
capacity for the typical home user, data storage
is a much more sensitive and complex topic in a
corporate environment. There are the
well-established players such as Adaptec, Dell,
EMC², HP/Compaq, IBM, as well as a few others, and
these companies offer solid solutions built around
proven technology, however, their prices often
exceed the budget of many credit unions.
Fortunately, there are some affordable options out
there for setting up a SAN (storage-area network)
for well under a thousand dollars. Find out more
in the October issue of Credit Union tech-talk -
subscribe today.
Asigra, a company that offers agentless multi-site
backup and recovery software for network
computing, performed an online survey of IT
executives and found that 75% indicated that their
companies suffered unrecoverable loss of corporate
data they thought was successfully backed up to
tape due to unreadable, lost or stolen media.
Among the survey findings:
• 63 percent said they encountered unreadable
tapes when they tried to retrieve data.
• 61 percent said that they back up remote offices
to ensure business continuity in the event of a
disaster, while 17 percent indicated that there
are no formal backup procedures in place at their
remote offices.
• 20 percent of respondents said their business
has experienced data loss due to lost or stolen
tape media.
• Data recovery-focused features that respondents
found valuable in ensuring a secure and smoother
backup/recovery process included keeping the
latest backup version locally on disk (93 percent)
and encryption for data while ‘in-flight’ and
‘at-rest’ (85 percent).
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Software
Updates
Daylight savings time (DST) will be extended by
four weeks this year thanks to energy legislation
that was passed this summer. While the energy
savings may add up to the equivalent of 100,000
barrels of oil a day, it may also trip up
applications and devices programmed to
automatically handle DST hours based on the
schedule the United States has kept for nearly two
decades. Many applications rely on the operating
system to maintain an accurate clock, therefore
Microsoft's support website contains dozens of
articles related to DST issues, varying from minor
oddities to broad problems (some multiprocessor
computers running Windows NT 4.0 have trouble
adjusting to DST). While no one is expecting
Y2K-buglike chaos and expense, it is something
that needs to be addressed by IT and other
employees at the credit union that may deal with
time sensitive devices such as vaults with time
locks.
Anti-spyware software maker Tenebril plans to
release an update to its SpyCatcher product
($29.95) along with a new, free version dubbed
SpyCatcher Express. Both products promise to find
and remove spyware from a user's computer,
including "mutating" spyware that was created to
avoid detection. "The hardest spyware to find and
detect is the evasive, mutating spyware. We alone
have a method of identifying, blocking and
removing it," claims a Tenebril spokesperson.
Sphinx Software recently released XP Firewall
Control 1.5. XP Firewall Control extends the
capabilities of the host-based firewall included
in Windows XP Service Pack 2. XP Firewall Control
lets you have different firewall settings for
different local applications and zones (groups of
remote hosts). The firm says that this increases
security by letting you open your firewall only to
trusted local applications and remote hosts.
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ATMs/Kiosks
Triton Systems unveiled its newest full-function
banking ATM model: Triton FT7000. The FT7000 —
walk-up or drive-through — can be fitted for most
through-the-wall openings. Powered by an Intel
Pentium IV processor and Microsoft Windows XP, it
is also XFS compliant when outfitted with Prism,
Triton’s open platform software. The FT7000 family
also can be configured at the factory to support
an envelope depository with an optional envelope
dispenser, a two-sided check scanner, and features
security mirrors and a camera port.
Some estimates place ATM-related fraud in the US
between $50 and $60 million annually, but there
are no exact numbers. Because of the convergence
of ID theft, phishing and other techniques, it is
often difficult to accurately define "ATM fraud."
Find out more in the October issue of Credit Union
tech-talk - subscribe now.
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ATMs/Kiosks Section Sponsored by
Nationwide Money Services
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Looking to increase Brand Recognition and provide members with
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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.
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The Sarnoff Corporation announced the release of
Iris on the Move, which they claim is a biometric
identification system that provides "a powerful,
accurate and reliable approach to iris recognition
that can capture the iris image while the subject
is in motion." They say that their system allows
up to 20 subjects per minute to be recognized.
Subjects walk through a recognition portal at
normal walking pace with no need to stop or
perform any other action. Subjects need to keep
their eyes open, look straight ahead, and, in some
cases, remove their eyeglasses. The company, which
was founded in 1942 as RCA Laboratories, says that
iris recognition has an extremely low false match
rate, is non-invasive, and more convenient and
hygienic than other biometric identification
systems.
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Wireless
World
Verizon Wireless is taking big steps to bring its
wireless broadband technology to the masses. In a
move that some analysts say gives Verizon an edge
over its competitors, Dell, Lenovo (makers of the
Thinkpad), and HP, will all manufacture laptops
with built-in EV-DO access to Verizon’s cellular
BroadbandAccess network. Dell will have it in
select models starting next year, as will HP.
Lenovo will have them out as early as October, in
the new ThinkPad Z-series. Unlimited EV-DO
(Evolution Data Only, Evolution Data Optimized)
access with Verizon will cost $80 a month, with a
$20 a month discount if you have an existing voice
subscription. Meanwhile, Dell has also agreed to
embed Cingular Wireless 3G HSDPA broadband access
in its notebooks. Cingular claims HSDPA (High
Speed Downlink Packet Access) will offer typical
speeds of 400 to 700 Kbps.
Cisco Systems announced that Nitro, WV-based
Peoples Federal Credit Union has deployed the
Cisco Business Communications Solution (BCS).
Cisco, along with Advanced Technical Solutions
Inc., are helping Peoples Federal Credit Union to
deploy BCS technologies for use within a mobile
branch in a truck that includes an ATM, two teller
windows and a satellite-based video surveillance
system. The credit union has deployed Cisco's new
Catalyst Express 500 switch, which has an
interface that is designed to let organizations
set up and operate switch ports without a trained
network engineer. The Catalyst Express 500 Series,
with four models aimed at small businesses, costs
between $795 to $1,995.
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Security
Section
The top three US credit reporting companies will
adopt a single, shared encryption standard to
better protect the huge amounts of sensitive
electronic data they receive every day from
financial institutions, retailers and credit card
companies. Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, which
maintain huge databases on hundreds of millions of
Americans, said the joint effort would involve the
development and adoption of “data-cloaking” code
built on an encrypted algorithm and 128-bit,
secret-key technologies.
In a related story, the top security experts at
VISA and MasterCard said that organized crime
rings -- with the help, in many cases, of former
Soviet KGB cryptographers -- are successfully
using the Internet and "crimeware" software
programs to circumvent the defenses credit card
issuers have erected against them. Attendees at
the recent Bank Card Conference were told that the
ongoing struggle is against "loosely knit, elusive
criminal networks responsible for much of the
fraud." Symantec Corp., the world's biggest
security software maker, confirms these fears with
a recently released report that malware designed
to capture confidential information made up three
quarters of the top 50 attacks during the first
six months of 2005.
Every credit union should perform a gap analysis
of their systems' security on an ongoing basis,
and they should use the results to adjust their
security strategies accordingly. We will give you
some tips on some areas to focus on when
conducting a security gap analysis in the October
issue of Credit Union tech-talk - subscribe today.
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Security Section
Sponsored by
e-DMZ Security
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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?
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Leaders
Roundtable
CORE
SYSTEMS:
Using Core Systems for a Competitive Advantage
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Technology
and Marketing
Cognos is a world leader in business intelligence
(BI) and performance planning software. Many
observers agree that current complexity -
requiring the integration of various server-based
tools and warehouses - has kept BI largely out of
the midmarket. The firm announced its
next-generation server software that they say
replaces five separate Cognos products with a
single product built on a services-based
architecture: Cognos 8 Business Intelligence. “In
the past, analysis tools could only go against an
OLAP cube and reporting could only go against
relational databases. Now users can do reporting
against cubes and analysis against any data
source,” said a Cognos spokesperson. “Users no
longer have to think about the kind of data they
need for the kind of analysis they want to
perform.” Other features include improved event
management, expanded scorecards, and the ability
for users to see the top and worst performers in a
field and summarize everything in between.
San Diego-based Cabrillo Credit Union is
aggressively targeting teen members with their new
Self-Organized Cabrillo Account Life (SOCAL)
program. Teens receive a debit card, home banking,
monthly statements and even an auto loan
application for their 16th birthday. Before
joining the program, teens must complete an
educational workbook.
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Online
Banking/E-Commerce/Website Design
Financial services firms and Internet merchants
are both looking for more secure and low cost
methods to verify that online consumers are who
they say they are, which is driving business for a
form of such verification known as knowledge-based
authentication. Find out more about KBA and how it
works in the October issue of Credit Union
tech-talk - subscribe now.
Western Union and MoneyGram International are
increasingly coming under pressure from financial
institutions that are offering more and more
prepaid debit cards that are capable of handling
remittances overseas, according to a report,
entitled "Money Transfer Cards & the Accidental
Global Customer" published by The Aite Group. The
Boston research firm says that there will be 1.7
million active money-transfer cards issued by
American institutions by 2007, up from 400,000
this year. The report notes that "Unlike most
other prepaid card products (e.g., gift cards,
teen cards, payroll cards), the money transfer
card has proven a valuable tool for bank customer
acquisition."
Startup ECOM Financial Corp. is introducing an
anonymous, disposable prepaid card that will clear
transactions through the MasterCard network. The
card, which has a $500 cash value cap, can be used
for purchases on the Internet as well as at the
point of sale. The firm claims that it is the only
truly anonymous plastic card in America. A
spokesperson said that "We don't collect any
information from the consumer - no name or
address." ECOM’s plans call for them to sell its
cards through major-brand merchants as if it were
any other type of merchandise, such as a phone
card.
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Internet
Access
Microsoft and Qwest revealed they are
collaborating to provide VoIP (voice over
Internet protocol) and other telecommunications
convergence services to small and medium-sized
businesses, making Qwest the first service
provider to utilize Microsoft's recently
launched VoIP software suite. Microsoft is
contributing its Solution for Enhanced VoIP
services to the joint project, a suite comprised
of hosted versions of Microsoft server products
including Exchange Server 2003, Office Live
Communications Server 2005 and Windows
SharePoint Services with Sylantro Systems
Corp.'s Application Feature Server. Microsoft
and Qwest are currently working to deploy this
suite with Qwest's OneFlex VoIP network
services.
MCI also wants to help organizations move to
VoIP as evidenced by their announcement that
they have expanded its VoIP suite of services to
include two new solutions: Managed IP PBX and IP
Trunking Services. With MCI's newly-extended
Advantage portfolio, companies can now choose
the VoIP solution that best matches their
business and technical needs, while taking
advantage of their existing voice and data
infrastructure. Solutions can be hosted within
MCI's network, located at the customer's
premise, or a hybrid of the two.
Telecom analysts are saying that new
technologies and improved emergency procedures
could help avoid prolonged communications
outages should another disaster of the same
magnitude as Hurricane Katrina strike the US
again. Their ideas range from making sure that
cellular and landline telephone switches are
located well above sea level to more
extraordinary suggestions, including the use of
emerging WiMax technologies, satellite
communications equipment, and mesh networks --
or even putting radio transceivers aboard blimps
that could be flown to a disaster zone. Even FCC
Chairman Kevin Martin called for the government
to incorporate the Internet into an emergency
warning system. Emergency responders also need
more radio spectrum to communicate with each
other, Martin added, and they need new
technologies like so-called "smart" radios that
can jump to different frequencies when some
telecommunications providers are not
functioning. Hurricane Katrina has revived calls
in Congress to set a date for police, fire
departments and emergency medical services to
take over radio frequencies set aside for them
nearly a decade ago but still used by television
broadcasters.
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Call
Centers
San Francisco-based Halloo Communications has
launched FlexCall Manager, a Web-based hosted call
center service targeting organizations with
between five and 40 agents. The company said that
in order to set up, maintain and manage the
system, call center managers and their agents
require nothing more than their personal phone and
an Internet browser. FlexCall Manager does not
require the purchase or use of any new hardware or
software, and practically eliminates switching
costs. Agents can be located in virtually any
location and don't have to download software
programs or manage platform upgrades. The firm
says that their on-demand call center starts at
$300/month.
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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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