By Gideon Samid – Gideon@AGSgo.com   Banks, traders, stores, clubs: All hold in confidence their customers’ or users’ data, and imposters galore are threatening their business. An unease prevails in their executive suites. The current compromise between security, cost, and convenience is not very well balanced. It is time …

It’s big news, not to mention a major embarrassment, when a leader in data security itself becomes a victim of a serious breach. That was the case for RSA, which stores the tokens widely used by financial institutions as a second factor of authentication for online-payment transactions. In the breach—announced …

First Data Corp. this week captured big headlines with its $29 billion plan to go private (Digital Transactions News, April 2), but another development at the company could also have a significant long-term impact on the electronic-transactions business. The big processor late last month reported it has licensed patents from …

In a move aimed at addressing widespread fears about e-commerce security, MagTek Inc. has launched a company to commercialize its card-based authentication technology and leverage it for both online and point-of-sale transactions. Magensa LLC, a subsidiary of the Carson, Calif., maker of check scanners and card-terminal components, officially began operation …

Seeking to address industry uncertainty about its guidelines on online-banking security, the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council this week released a set of clarifications it says addresses “a representation” of questions it has received from banks, technology companies, and banking examiners. This latest document from the FFIEC, an agency that …

In the debate between advocates of software-based authentication and backers of hardware devices, the former are winning, and this week's acquisition of Cyota Inc. by RSA Security Inc. proves it, says PassMark Security LLC. “To have the largest token provider in the world recognize no-hardware, two-factor authentication, it clearly endorses …

With identify fraud posing a serious challenge to online bankers and merchants, technology vendors are starting to respond with hardware- and software-based solutions offering so-called strong authentication, which adds a second factor of identity to the standard user-name/password pair. Now Corillian Corp. has launched a product it says is the …

A new guidance from federal banking regulators calling traditional user names and passwords “inadequate” for online banking could lead to a major push for strong authentication next year. The guidance, released last month by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, recommends what it calls multi-factor authentication, or identification systems involving …

The rising interest among banks and Internet merchants in more robust methods to verify that online customers are who they say they are is helping drive business for a form of such verification known as knowledge-based authentication. Verid Inc., a 6-year-old supplier of KBA processing services, says its transaction volume, …

Consumers are willing to engage in more e-commerce if banks, auction sites, and other Web-based service providers offer strong authentication, particularly that based on hardware devices, to protect against fraud, a survey shows. Almost half of consumers surveyed said they would be more or much more likely to switch to …