With updating regulations, ensuring age-appropriate access has become more important than ever. Governments and regulatory authorities across the globe are instituting and enforcing strict age verification measures to protect minors from accessing potentially harmful content and services. In the past two years, 15 states have implemented new age verification regulations in the US alone, and that number is only growing. Europe, the UK, Canada, and other regions have all already updated or are updating their laws on age verification. Ondato’s latest report compiles these regulations into an easy-to-understand resource, delivering a comprehensive overview of age verification standards.

The report analyzes age verification laws and practices across major markets, including the EU, the United States, the United Kingdom, and emerging economies. It provides sector-specific insights into regulations affecting industries such as gaming, social media, e-commerce, and online content streaming. Additionally, the report identifies common compliance challenges that businesses face when navigating diverse regulations and explores how technology can help mitigate these issues. 

“Our goal is to empower businesses with the knowledge and tools they need to stay compliant and protected,” said Liudas Kanapienis, CEO and co-founder at Ondato. “This report is an invaluable tool for companies striving to keep pace with the evolving regulatory environment. Even today, as we publish this report, Australia is testing out age verification systems for what could become a social media ban for anyone younger than 16 years old.”

With changing regulations focusing heavily on data privacy, the need for age verification solutions that offer anonymity only grows. Because of this, Ondato recently released a reusable age verification solution that is able to verify user ages and keep the costs low while allowing companies to fully comply with the newest regulations.  

The report is now available for download on Ondato’s official website. For further inquiries or to access the report, please visit https://ondato.com/ondato/age-verification-lawsuits/#Age_Verification_Regulations_Worldwide

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Encryption

Encryption is a broad term for a wide array of techniques that serve to obscure sensitive information from comprehension by any party that might intercept an attempt to transmit it. The practice of cryptography can be dated back as far as ancient Egypt. While the principle of modern technology is the same, the digital encryption used in modern cybersecurity might be more directly traced to the rotor machines used by militaries to scramble communications transmitted via telegraph beginning in WWI. Invented first by American Edward Hebern in 1917, and quickly duplicated and improved upon by Arthur Scherbius as the infamous German Enigma machine, these early mechanical contraptions used systems of rotors to substitute characters for one another to obscure messages. The recipient would need to use the same machine to reverse engineer the cipher in order to decode and read the message, as the rotors enabled a dynamic substitution of characters that prevented the use of a simple key to decode the encrypted messages.

Modern encryption systems preserve this principle, but take it to an extreme made possible only by the wonders of high-frequency, high-density transistors on modern silicon computer chips. The global standard for high-security encryption, AES-256, used a 256-bit key to transmute the input data by breaking it into a series of tables and mixing up the characters. You can visualize how this process works by imagining a string of text having each individual character swapped with a predetermined substitute, placed on a side of a giant rubik’s cube, and then having the rubik’s cube completely scrambled. The patterns used to substitute and scramble the characters are separated from the message itself, and are stored in a separate file known as the key, which can be used to unscramble and re-translate the encrypted message.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, is the American system and now the global golden standard for data security in the medical industry. Originally passed in 1996 but updated regularly to ensure compliance with modern standards, HIPAA outlines guidelines for data privacy and protection that must be undertaken by healthcare providers. HIPAA compliance requires that data is encrypted when being transmitted and at rest. That means that medical data needs to be secure even when it’s simply sitting within the system in which it was recorded. 

In order to accomplish this, security keys must be stored in separate partitions or modules from the data itself, and are themselves encrypted. In modern systems, this is often accomplished using a Trusted Platform Module, or TPM, an onboard module programmed to only output its keys when provided with a specific password. Keys can also be stored in separate hardware, like a key card or USB drive. Regardless of which method of separating the key from encrypted data is selected, it’s important that the two never be combined unless the person attempting to do so is authorized to manage that data.

Authentication

These mechanisms for limiting access to the keys used to encrypt and decrypt messages require some form of verification that the person requesting access to them actually should have that access. This is referred to as authentication. At this point, we’re all familiar with the 4-6 digit numbers we pull from emails, text messages, or authenticator applications, and as much of a pain as they are, they’re absolutely necessary in ensuring that encrypted data can only be accessed by those with a legitimate reason for having it. Medical information is some of the most sensitive data that we have, so carefully limiting who has access to it is vital.

HIPAA requires two factor authentication be implemented in any system storing customer data. Authentication applications are often considered the most secure, as the systems they use to generate one-time tokens utilize encryption keys stored on Trusted Platform Modules, which are much more difficult to fraudulently duplicate than hardware proximity keys since they do not emit radio frequencies that can be captured by devices like radio frequency identification device copiers, and are more difficult to intercept than emails or text messages. They also have the added benefit of being not only guarded closely by their holders by default as a result of being located on the user’s valuable personal smartphone, but are also normally behind a PIN code assigned by that user. But no matter what form of authentication is employed, it is only as secure as the system it interacts with.

Secure Software and Hardware

The systems that medical data is stored on also have to meet exacting specifications. Software systems managing patient data must encrypt data at rest, and require authentication. They must also be tested against potential vulnerabilities that might be used to transmit or intercept data before it is encrypted (e.g. while it is being entered or retrieved), including memory safety testing. Hardware systems, including the computers and networks that patient data is stored and transmitted on, must remain up to date and be audited regularly to ensure that their built-in mechanisms for resisting hacking retain their integrity. 

As a result of these lofty requirements, cloud-based systems managed by large multinational corporations are increasingly preferred as a result of their ability to take advantage of their vast scale to drive down the costs associated with producing the high quality, high security systems needed for storing medical data.

Best Practices

The most likely way for a security breach to occur is not actually hacking or any other form of fancy technological engineering — on the contrary, social engineering is a much more common source of breach. Employees granted access to sensitive patient data must undergo training on data security best practices to ensure that they are aware of the risks and the stakes inherent in the work they are engaging in, and to ensure that they follow best practices including not granting others access to their mobile phone or personal computer if it contains sensitive information or authentication methods to systems containing sensitive medical data. There are also strict hiring requirements that must be followed by medical organizations to ensure that people likely to commit any sort of crime don’t have exposure to sensitive data.

All of these pieces need to come together to ensure that sensitive patient data is protected. While the standards for technical requirements are high, they are nearly useless if the people operating and maintaining them aren’t aware of their responsibilities. At the end of the day, all of the fancy high-tech systems in the world can’t protect data from carelessness.

The post The Importance of Privacy: How Medical Practices Keep Patient Data Safe appeared first on Fintech News.

Issues like missing images or unaligned texts and buttons can damage your brand reputation. So, it’s time to take a look at how your emails appear on different random mobile devices and see how you can improve. Below we have highlighted a few tips on how to optimise email signatures for mobile devices.

Alt: Email on a mobile device

Effective Ways to Optimise Email Signatures for Mobile Devices

Sending emails is an important part of most businesses, which is why many businesses take their email digital signature seriously. Check below for different ways to optimise it for mobile devices.

• Utilise email signature management tools

Most email phishing is sent with emails that do not have a recognized email signature. So, if your business does not have an email signature for your emails sent, you can easily create one using any of the several email signature management tools. Creating an email signature from scratch can seem daunting. However, you can simplify the process by using an email signature management tool. But depending on what you want to achieve, you can compare and contrast the differences between the features of the different email signature tools before making a choice. 

• Ensure image resolution is high

When choosing an image to add to the email signature, you should opt for one with a high resolution. Most mobile devices use a method known as scaling to enlarge any images in the email signature. As such, if you use a rasterized image, be it a GIF, JPEG, or PNG, the flaws in the image become more apparent if the resolution is low. So, to avoid a situation where the quality of the image degrades in your email signature, it is better to use images of at least three times the resolution of what you use in the image element of the signature.

• Keep the width of the signature below 400 pixels

Another mistake people often make when designing an email signature is that they opt for images with the wrong dimensions. Using an image that is too wide or too thin will impact the overall result, as the email signature will appear distorted. When choosing an image, the ideal image to use should be kept under 400 pixels in width. When the image is too wide, the email signature will appear too long or compressed, depending on the case. Also, it’s important to note that even though smartphones come with landscape and portrait modes, it’s best to keep in mind when designing email signatures that the device will often be used in portrait mode.

• Break up long lines

Using long lines in your email signature can also be detrimental. Rather, keep the text concise. If you need to use more information, it is better to go the abbreviation route or, better still, utilise icons. The idea of breaking up long lines applies particularly to addresses. When you break long lines, it makes the email signature look neat and presentable compared to long lines, which can be tiring on the eyes. Moreover, using long lines in your email signature can cause it to appear misaligned. The best practice is to break a long line into two or four lines.

• Use adequate spacing of elements

Furthermore, spacing elements in your email signature is vital, as it helps make it look compact for mobile. When you don’t use adequate space between elements, the email signature will not look professional. Moreover, when the space is not enough, it makes it difficult to click those elements, causing users to accidentally click on the wrong link, which can be frustrating. But in a case where the elements don’t have hyperlinks, then you can keep them compact. Cases like your title position, name, photo, disclaimers, and similar fields can be kept compact. If the font, icon, or image you use in the email signature is small, it’s best to space the elements more. Whereas if you use larger fonts or icons/images, minimal spacing can fly.

• Make fonts big enough

Another mistake people often make when designing an email signature is with the font used. The style and size of the font you use are very critical, as they can mean the difference between readable and clear text. Sometimes, text in your email signature may appear appropriately sized on desktops, but on mobiles, it may appear too tiny. So, it’s important when it comes to fonts to choose one that is legible and keep the size between 11 and 18 pixels. Of course, this rule is not cast in stone, as you can go outside this size range depending on the design and style of your email signature. But always keep in mind that small fonts draw less attention and may not be suitable for visually impaired users. 

• Add click-to-call links for phone numbers

Adding a click-to-call link in your email signature makes it easier for readers to call you directly from the email. Rather than having to write down your number before calling, the click-to-call link opens the dialer prompt on their phone, making it easier. Unlike email addresses and websites, phone numbers do not hyperlink automatically, so it is important to be intentional about making it clickable. 

• Add a map link to addresses

Also, adding a clickable map link to your business addresses on the email signature makes it easier for readers to find you. When clicked, it launches the map app on their phone, directing them to your business address. Having an address on your email signature has a way of reassuring readers, making them worry less about email compromise. If you don’t know how to get your business address map link, go to the map app on your device, find your location, click on the share button, and then copy the link. You can then paste the link into the hyperlink property of the address element. 

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What’s at stake when corporations don’t put strategies in place to protect their employees and customers? Everything, says Juan Rivera, senior solutions engineer at Telesign.

“From a regulatory standpoint, recently Meta was slapped with a $1.3 billion fine by the European Union for violating data privacy – and they were just used as an example for companies that cannot afford a $1.3 billion fine,” Rivera explains. “There’s financial loss, as well as potentially huge reputational loss when both customer and employee trust is damaged. Most companies don’t have the flexibility or luxury to manage these kinds of losses.”

In other words, it’s incredibly expensive on every side if corporations fail to put safety practices in place.

The fraud and identity theft landscape now

The most current cybercriminal schemes are not new at all — fraudsters have been using these tactics for years, but now they’re backed by generative AI. Phishing emails that trick victims into revealing login credentials or sensitive information are created with convincing ChatGPT scripts.

Data breaches that bypass safety checks are made possible by tricking generative AI into writing malicious code that reveals the chat history of active users, personally identifiable information like names, email addresses, payment addresses, and even the last four digits and expiration data of credit cards.

Criminals are also leveraging synthetic identities, similar to the way sales and marketing teams use data to create tailored user profiles in order to target the right prospects. With addresses, personal information and stolen credit cards, they can build new credit identities or log into an existing account with very real information.

On the password and credentials front, the pattern recognition abilities of AI can predict the passwords of users who have chosen fairly weak ones, while AI-powered chat bots and voice synthesis can impersonate individuals and organizations, such as a CEO reaching out to a low-level employee in a very convincing manner.

As AI becomes better at predicting human patterns, impersonating humans and sounding more like humans, it’ll be used more to trick both employees and consumers alike. These messages are convincing because they understand the behavior of specific people, and can predict how they’d act with their employees. And the danger is imminent, Rivera says.

“Statistically speaking, the chances of these events happening are 100 percent,” he explains. “They’re already happening. AI is raising the stakes, enabling fraudsters to scale up these attacks faster, better and more convincingly.”

Protecting and securing data and identities

There are both mandated security standards necessary to adhere to, required by law, but also a whole host of considerations that are simply just practical. That includes going beyond two-factor identification (2FA) because it’s no longer a strong enough standard — multi-factor authentication is necessary today. That means an additional layer beyond just a standard PIN code. It might be low friction and common enough today that users never balk, but it’s no longer enough. It could mean something more sophisticated, such as biometrics, or requiring additional information to validate your identity, like a piece of physical identification a user is in possession of — a document, a license, an ID and so on.

There are other advanced identification protocols that aren’t customer-facing, but live behind the scenes. For example, Telesign uses phone identity APIs to gain insight into a user that’s trying to create an account or log in to an existing account. It leverages telco data from a user’s provider to match the information a user is providing with information on record.

“It’s the ability to combine data points like phone number, email address, even the originating IP of the user profile, to tell you whether a user is suspicious,” Rivera explains. “These data points become a scorecard to measure the likelihood of a genuine access account or an attempt at fraud. Suspicious behavior triggers a response, and it’s low- to no-friction protection because it happens in milliseconds on the back end.”

With a low-friction approach at the top of the funnel, the approach to any suspicious actors or behavior can be reinforced with additional friction — requesting multi-factor identification, for example, such as an email to the address on record asking the consumer to call to validate a sign-in attempt.

Beyond tech: Why the human element is crucial

The technical side of security is the foundation of safety, but ongoing employee training and education around security best practices is absolutely critical to mitigate threats, Rivera says. This can include sharing with employees a suspicious email that’s come through and noting the features that give it away, or making sure passwords are changed frequently and software updates are applied diligently.

But security awareness needs to extend beyond businesses and employees; companies should engage with customers on a regular basis to raise knowledge and awareness. It not only adds another layer of safety, but it bolsters optics, Rivera points out, so that a company is now seen as caring for the customer base enough to continually educate them on evolving threats in the digital space.

“I don’t think we see this enough,” he says. “We don’t see the Amazons of the world reaching out on a regular basis and saying, ‘Hey, we understand that you’re shopping online more. We want to make sure you understand how to stay safe.’ We need to start making education an industry standard, because fraudsters don’t sleep.”

Link: https://venturebeat.com/security/the-next-wave-of-cyber-threats-defending-your-company-against-cybercriminals-empowered-by-generative-ai/?utm_source=pocket_saves

Source: https://venturebeat.com

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Link: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202307/biometrics-integrations-look-to-the-future-of-account-access-money-and-digital-id?utm_source=pocket_saves

Source: https://www.biometricupdate.com

The post Biometrics integrations look to the future of account access, money, and digital ID appeared first on Fintech News.

Link: https://securityboulevard.com/2023/07/2023-fraud-trends-to-know-and-prevent/?utm_source=pocket_saves

Source: https://securityboulevard.com

The post 2023 fraud trends to know and prevent appeared first on Fintech News.

Link: https://www.paymentsjournal.com/retain-more-subscription-customers-by-reducing-billing-friction/

Source: https://www.paymentsjournal.com

The post 2023 predictions: authentication, digital identity, and in-car payments appeared first on Fintech News.

There are several benefits that digital signage can bring to banks and financial institutions. Some benefits include better engaging customers, providing more information in an easily consumable format, and creating a more personalized customer experience.

This article will examine how banks can use digital signage to improve their customer experience.

Overview of digital signage technology and the banking industry

Digital signage technology has been around for a few years and has slowly made its way into banking and financial institutions. It is a flexible solution for banking that every business should explore. 

There are several benefits that digital signage can bring to these institutions. Firstly, digital signage can help with branding and marketing efforts. With the right content, digital signage can help create a positive image for the bank or financial institution and promote its products and services.

Digital signage can also be used as a communication tool. Financial institutions can use it to broadcast messages to their customers, such as updates on account balances, new products and services, or special promotions.

Finally, digital signage can be used as an information hub. Customers can find information about the bank or financial institution, such as branch locations, opening hours, or contact information.

How digital signage can help improve customer experience

Regarding customer experience, banks and other financial institutions always look for ways to improve. They must find ways to make the customer feel comfortable and important, and digital signage can help.

Digital signage provides an opportunity to communicate with customers in a way that is personal and relevant. Financial institutions can use it to showcase their products and services and share important messages clearly and concisely.

It’s also an effective way to build brand awareness and create a positive image for the institution. Customers will see that the institution is modern and up-to-date and will be more likely to do business with them.

Enhancing the security of financial institutions with digital signage

Digital signage technology can help financial institutions improve the safety of their premises and operations. It can display important information and alerts to staff and customers. It can help ensure that everyone is aware of any security threats or risks and knows what to do in an emergency.

Improving operational efficiency with digital signage

In several ways, you can use digital signage to increase operational efficiency in your bank or financial institution.

• Use digital signage to display up-to-the-minute exchange rates, so your staff can quickly and easily give your customers accurate information.
• Use digital signage to display wait times for tellers and other services, so your customers can decide which line to join.
• Use digital signage to run marketing campaigns and promote products and services to your customers while they are waiting in line.

Using digital signage technology, you can make your bank or financial institution more efficient and provide a better customer experience.

Cost savings and other advantages of using digital signage in banking

There are many advantages of using digital signage in banking. One of the main advantages is cost savings. With digital signage, you don’t have to print out paper signs and post them around the bank. You save a lot of money in the long run.

Another advantage of digital signage is that it’s very flexible. You can change the content on your digital signs anytime you want. It is very convenient if you need to make changes on short notice.

Digital signage is also very eye-catching. With its bright colors and dynamic content, digital signage can grab attention. It is ideal for banks that want to promote their products and services.

Digital signage technology has revolutionized the banking and financial industries, providing a more efficient and cost-effective approach to marketing, communication, and customer engagement. With its ability to provide a truly interactive experience, digital signage can transform how banking and financial institutions do business, offering a unique way to reach, engage, and serve their customers. By taking advantage of this innovative technology, banks and financial institutions can ensure their customers have the best possible experience while staying ahead of the competition. If you’re looking for a cost-effective and flexible solution, digital signage is worth considering.

The post What Benefits Digital Signage Technology Can Bring to the Banking and Financial Institutions appeared first on Fintech News.

Link: https://www.biometricupdate.com/202211/the-future-of-payments-biometrics-within-the-financial-eco-system

Source: https://www.biometricupdate.com

The post The future of payments: Biometrics within the financial eco-system appeared first on Fintech News.

Depending on the country they live in, Android users of the Google Pay app may have noticed a recent update replacing Google Pay with a new, multipurpose Google Wallet.

Per Google, the roll out of the wallet will impact users in close to 40 countries across Europe and Middle East including the U.K., France, Belgium, Ireland, Germany and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Beyond just a rebrand, the latest update expands Google Pay’s existing offering and enables users to not only make contactless payments, but store and use digital identity cards and health passes, hotel keys, event tickets and even store a digital copy of their COVID-19 vaccination card and test records. Users in Germany, the only country besides the U.S., can also add PayPal to their Google Wallet.

With this move, the U.S. search giant seems to be placing its bets on these technologies to turn its Google Wallet into a multipurpose identification super app, and hold its own against tough competition in the mobile wallet space.

Digital ID and Authentication

For as long as monetary systems have existed, they have relied on technology that allows people to identify and authenticate payments. Signatures, passwords, identification numbers and biometrics are all ways of verifying that someone is who they say they are and aren’t fraudulently spending other people’s money.

But authentication isn’t just a challenge for processing payments. Google Wallet is seeking to position itself as an authentication app that uses the same technologies that have become commonplace in making payments to enable people to access their workplaces, unlock their cars, prove their memberships, and even replace physical identity documents.

With dedicated APIs for each functionality and Google partners that specialize in each specific area, the new Google Wallet features are set to go mainstream in the coming months and years.

In the U.S. and Canada, on-phone ID solutions have already mostly replaced physical student cards at a number of universities thanks to Google technology.

And while digital car keys were pioneered by Apple and BMW last year, Google’s inevitable arrival on the scene marks the next stage in the technology’s evolution, with the potential to make physical car keys redundant in the same way that mobile wallets are increasingly replacing plastic debit and credit cards.

Finally, with countries around the world passing legislation to reduce their dependence on physical documents, digital IDs becoming mainstream may well be a question of when rather than if.

In Europe, while schemes like Norway’s BankID have seen widespread adoption, they have so far been limited to online authentication processes, and in the case of BankID, are only really useful for making payments.

What’s more, other countries have faced significant challenges, and although an EU-wide initiative is in the works, it may be years before a practically feasible pan-European digital ID goes into effect.

Yet Google’s ultimate goal of integrating digital IDs is perhaps the most ambitious aspect of Google Wallet. As Google engineers hinted in 2020, the ultimate prize for the platform is a generic authentication technology that would allow any identification scheme to be supported by the Google Wallet:

“[Android] APIs for managing and presenting identity documents [are] generic enough to be usable for other kinds of electronic documents, from school ID or bonus program club cards to passports,” they noted.

In the race to build a broadly applicable digital ID wallet, Google faces stiff competition from Apple, which already supports mobile driving licenses in Arizona and Maryland, with more U.S. states and territories committed to introducing the feature soon.

In the EU, there is the additional challenge that authorities are likely to block any move by Big Tech to gain too much influence in the emerging digital ID ecosystem. Instead, the European Commission has suggested that it will build its own mobile wallet to support the EU-wide digital ID expected to launch in the near future.

The idea of a mobile wallet that can be used for a range of identification purposes beyond making routine payments has certainly taken root, but what Google Wallet’s role will be in the evolving ID authentication landscape remains to be seen.

Link: https://www.pymnts.com/identity/2022/can-google-wallet-hold-its-own-in-competitive-highly-regulated-id-authentication-landscape/

Source: https://www.pymnts.com

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