Your source for the latest technology information of interest to credit unions across America.
Subscribe to our weekly e-mail newsletter and/or 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.
This Week's News is Sponsored by Better Branches ~
Parama CU Partners with Lodestar Technologies to Initiate Data Transformation
Lodestar Technologies, a data and technology services leader, announced that Parama CU, based in Toronto, Ontario, has chosen their Lodestar Enterprise Data Store solution.
Glia Signs 20 CUs in Four Months for Digital Member Service
Glia, a leading provider of Digital Customer Service, announced that 20 additional US CUs have selected its communications and collaboration platform to help improve how they serve members in a digital world. These CUs represent over $45 billion in total assets and more than six million members.
~~~
Zoned Flash: The Next Big Thing in Enterprise SSDs
Zoned NameSpaces (ZNS) divides SSD capacity into zones, and each zone is written sequentially, with the interface optimized for SSDs. The zone size is aligned to flash block sizes and zone capacity aligned to physical media sizes. This enables full flash block writes, dramatically reducing the need for partial block updates (and associated write amplification), and garbage collection. For hyperscalers, the ZNS logical to physical mapping can be integrated with filesystems, which improves performance, reduces host overhead, and eliminates the 1GB of DRAM for each terabyte of flash media requirement.
Things to Consider When Selecting Enterprise SSDs for Critical Workloads
IT leaders must understand environmental considerations, including the application, use case and its intended workload, before committing to specific SSDs. Performance may focus more on latency (and associated consistency), IOPs (and queue depth) or throughput (and block size) depending on the use case and application. Additionally, the scale of the application and solution dictate the level of emphasis, whether it be interface-, device-, or system-level performance. Similarly, mission-critical workloads may have different expectations or requirements e.g. high availability support, disaster recovery, or performance and performance consistency. This is where IT leaders need to rationalize and test the best fit for their use case.
~~~
A Step Toward a More Modern Banking Experience
The author argues that tokenized FI accounts present a degree of security and accountholder satisfaction that would serve as a big step in the right direction for the industry. With unique (tokenized) identifiers generated for each third party connected to an account, tracking and controlling payments should become much easier. And if any connection is compromised, the entire account is not at risk. He argues that limits could be set for each token, and the tokens can be turned on or off as the account holder wishes. The access and data collected by third-parties is limited to one identifier, so they receive payments when the account holder wants them to.
Qualys Unveils Multi-Vector EDR, a New Approach to Endpoint Detection and Response
Qualys just announced Qualys Multi-Vector EDR which they claim takes a new multi-vector approach to Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR). Traditional EDR solutions singularly focus on endpoints’ malicious activities to hunt and investigate cyberattacks. The company says that Multi-Vector EDR enables security teams to unify multiple context vectors like asset and software inventory, end-of-life visibility, vulnerabilities and exploits, misconfigurations, network traffic summary, MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques, malware, endpoint telemetry, and network reachability by leveraging the Qualys backend to correlate with threat intelligence for accurate detection, investigation and response.
~~~
ATMs as the 'Mini-Branch' of the Future
This article posits that the days of the ATM serving as just a quick cash dispensary are numbered, and that ATMs can provide a safer, more cost-effective touchpoint, offering users a full range of financial services without the need to go inside a branch.
~~~
Here is a chance to learn about real life credit union success stories from various technology vendors through the words of their clients. This week's vendor is:
and their client is:
NorthEast Alliance Federal Credit Union
Credit Unions - if you have a vendor that you are happy with then please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.!
Vendors - if you have a credit union that is happy with your solutions then please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we will give you a $100 discount on your Case Study!
~~~
Private 5G Can Solve Some Enterprise Problems That Wi-Fi Can’t
Private 5G cellular deployments fit the needs of organizations for high-speed, low-latency connections between large numbers of devices, and some say the technology could replace Wi-Fi, but that’s not likely to happen anytime soon. Private 5G networks are best thought of as a supplementary to Wi-Fi and not a competitor, experts say, even though that’s clearly an ambition of the carriers. Proponents claim that 5G is inherently secure and doesn’t face the interference problems Wi-Fi does, so eventually it will challenge Wi-Fi.
75% of Cardholders Prefer Contactless Cards to Other Payment Methods
Based on responses from 1,000 U.S. cardholders who are familiar with contactless credit/debit card or “tap and pay” technology, a new Entrust Datacard survey reveals that 75% of U.S.-based payment cardholders prefer contactless cards as their primary payment method over chip insert, card swipe, mobile pay and cash. Respondents cited sanitation (70%) and speed (67%) as the primary benefits of contactless cards.
~~~
The MAP App™ is the first network-branded prepaid card exclusively serving credit unions to offer mobile banking -
contact us now to learn more about this market-leading innovation for credit unions:
(866) 598 - 0698
What Are Script-Based Attacks and What Can Be Done to Prevent Them?
As most endpoint security products handle file-based attacks relatively well, scripts are an excellent way for attackers to avoid making changes to a disk, thus bypassing the threat detection capabilities of many products. In today’s threat landscape, scripts provide initial access, enable evasion, and facilitate lateral movements post-infection. Attackers will use scripts directly on the machine or embed them in Office documents and PDFs sent to the victim as email attachments. This article provides an overview of the current script threat landscape as well as the most common script attacks and methods.
~~~
5 Critical Economic Trends for Financial Marketers
This article provides a sampling of 5 trends that FIs must now watch out for now as coronavirus thinking becomes built into everything: 1. How Consumers Are Coping with COVID Recession’s Impact and Stress; 2. When Americans Can Save Now, They Are Doing It With Zeal; 3. Have Some FIs Improved Their Image During COVID-19?; 4. Health Concerns Cause More Consumers to Seek Personal Wheels; and 5. Deferrals Help So Far, But May Not Show the Ultimate Picture.
~~~
For EMV’s security protections to work, the back-end systems deployed by card-issuing FIs are supposed to check that when a chip card is dipped into a chip reader, only the iCVV is presented; and conversely, that only the CVV is presented when the card is swiped. If somehow these do not align for a given transaction type, the issuer is supposed to decline the transaction. According to Brian Krebs, the trouble is that not all FIs have properly set up their systems this way. He covers this security issue in great detail in this article.
Visa to Incorporate Cryptocurrencies into Its Payments Network
Visa recently revealed plans to use cryptocurrencies into its traditional payments network. The payments giant said it has been working with Coinbase and Fold to “provide a bridge between digital currencies and [its] existing global network of 61 million merchants.” As a result of this collaboration, more than 25 digital currency wallets across the globe have linked up with Visa to enable consumers to spend their digital currency using a Visa debit or prepaid card.
~~
Juniper Adds a Service to Find and Quickly Fix WAN Glitches
Juniper now features WAN, LAN and wireless management under a central AI-based service called WAN Assurance to better compete with Cisco, VMware, HPE/Aruba, and others. WAN Assurance is a new cloud-based service that will gather telemetry data from Juniper SRX, Contrail and other WAN gear and pass that information to Marvis. Marvis understands what's normal activity on the network, looks for anomalies, and offers suggestions to fix problems and ensure WAN service levels. In many cases Marvis can respond without human intervention, Juniper says.
How to Tailor SASE to Your Organization
The secure access service edge (SASE) model is the next step for wide area network (WAN) transformation. SASE optimizes WANs for current trends such as cloud, mobility and even the rise in work from home induced by COVID-19. SASE integrates security capabilities into the network so they become a network service. Management of security and networking is done via the cloud so administrators can make a change once and push it to every location at once. This article covers a few ways to implement SASE.
~~~
How to Make Creative Scheduling Work at Your Contact Center
Traditionally, contact centers issued schedules that were solely based on the business demands and start times that could change week by week and even day by day. But increasingly employees are dictating what they need, and organizations are having to find ways to adapt in order to maintain morale and attract the right resources to do a very taxing job. The author highlights some ways that your contact center can effectively retain employees that are asking for more flexible schedule options.
~~~