Continue reading “Protecting children is not the same as preventing fraud.”
Author: Nick Norman
Executive Vice President Sales Americas at Consult Hyperion. A digital financial services and digital identity veteran excited by the societal changes imposed by COVID-19. Interested in working with companies looking to take advantage of such changes, who believe in a world that allows individuals and organizations to interact with each other, in the knowledge that their financial data and personal information is accurate and safe. I have the pleasure of working closely with a successful, experienced team of consultants and developers, embedded within our clients' project teams, managing the design, acquisition, implementation and operation of services that have changed peoples’ lives around the globe. At least one will be in your wallet or on your phone.
Can Current Technology Deliver Secure Mobile Voting Solutions?
Insecure technology is regularly cited as barrier to the use of online voting systems, in particular when casting your vote through your mobile phone, rather than putting your cross on a piece of paper and putting in a box at the polling station or mail box. At the same time those detractors trust the same mobile technology to place stock trades, initiate high value payments and more recently accessing their health records.
The Role of Technical Due Diligence in Investment Cycles
Have you noticed that some of the best attended events at conferences recently are the investment panels, populated by canny investors talking about where they are currently placing their funds? And so this was the case with Consult Hyperion’s recent webinar The Role of Due Diligence in Investment Cycles, featuring Jonathan Luff Co-Founder of CyLon, Europe’s leading investor in pre-seed and seed stage cyber and security technology startups. Howard Hall, Managing Director of Consult Hyperion North America, and Gary Munro, Technical Director Consult Hyperion and Dave Birch our Global Ambassador, who moderated the discussion.
Building SoftPOS – not as easy as you think.
For the third year running, my colleague Gary Munro facilitated a thought-provoking debate around the use of mobile phones and tablets as contactless payment terminals during last week’s virtual Merchant Payments Ecosystem (MPE) conference. For the last three years, Gary and his panellists have tracked the progress of the SoftPOS technology and standards. The three key messages that I took away from this year’s conversation were that:
Payment card issuance errors leave you vulnerable to fraud
As Consult Hyperion, and as many other analysts, predicted, Covid-19 has driven the adoption and use of contact-free technology at the point of service. A recent survey funded by the National Retail Foundation, found that no-touch payments have increased for 69 percent of US retailers surveyed, since January 2020. In May, Mastercard reported that 78% of all their transactions across Europe were contactless.
Fraudsters are always looking for ways to take advantage of potential weaknesses or even inexperience in new payment devices. A recent news story promoted a man in the middle attack in which two phones are used to transfer and manipulate the transaction message between a stolen contactless card and the point of sale terminal.
Leveraging the payment networks for immunity passports
As if lockdown were not bad enough, many of us are now faced with spending the next year with children unable to spend their Gap Year travelling the more exotic parts of the world. The traditional jobs within the entertainment and leisure sectors that could keep them busy, and paid for their travel, are no longer available. The opportunity to spend time with elderly relatives depends on the results of their last COVID-19 test.
I recognize that we are a lucky family to have such ‘problems’. However, they are representative of the issues we all face as we work hard to bring our families, companies and organizations out of lockdown. When can we open up our facilities to our employees, customers and visitors? What protection should we offer those employees that must or choose to work away from home? What is the impact of the CEO travelling abroad to meet new employees or customers, sign that large deal or deliver the keynote at that trade fair in Las Vegas?