How National Australia Bank Uses Cloud Computing to Cut Costs and Shrink Its Carbon Footprint

How much money, energy, and time get drained by your CU's current systems and processes?

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More and more financial institutions around the globe are finding that revising their energy policies and shifting toward "green IT" practices are key in optimizing resource management.

Spanning everything from IT to travel fleet, the energy reduction program adopted by the $782 billion-asset bank and Open Data Center Alliance member National Australia Bank (NAB) exemplifies the significant cost-savings and environmental benefits made possible by data virtualization through scalability, increased efficiency, and resource conservation.

Time for a data center overhaul for your CU? Read the BTN interview with NAB's Dennis McGee to learn about this large and complex institution's approach to green IT.

Zeus Variant Targets U.S. Accounts

The FBI has issued a warning to financial institutions about a new wave of ransomware which freezes and hijacks endpoint computer operating systems and attempts to extort funds from users while simultaneously working in the background to also rob their account data.

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Powered by the Zeus malware variant Citadel and the drive-by virus Reveton, these "targeted and convincing" attacks generate messages - often under the guise of the FBI - notifying users of their "illegal" Internet activity and demand that they pay fines in order to regain control of their computers. Meanwhile keyloggers are launched to steal online account credentials and other financial information.

Enhancing back-end fraud-prevention systems and processes so that malware is blocked from taking over your members' accounts even if their endpoints do become infected is critical, as is quick detection and removal.

The best defense, however, is educating your members. Given the lack of familiarity with ransom attacks, users in the U.S. have proven to be easy targets. Find out what both your CU and your members need to know.

Understanding the risks of different types of Mobile Banking transactions...

While leaving responsibility for personal mobile banking security solely in the hands of financial institutions is a poor strategy, your CU needs to do its part. Is yours?

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There are a number of different mobile banking techniques, and with each comes a specific set of security rationale. Both your CU and its members need to understand the various possible attack scenarios against mobile banking systems and what can be done to minimize risk.

Security controls built into smartphone operating systems are now thought to be stronger than those built into desktop computers; however mobile device malware threats are growing rapidly. Your members can easily undermine mobile banking security and thus actively monitoring the health of their devices can help them to protect their data.

Read the article and learn about the various types of mobile banking transactions and their associated risks.

Confidence in credit unions up, banks down

Credit unions once again take the lead over banks when it comes to trustworthiness in the public eye.

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According to the latest Chicago Booth/Kellogg School quarterly survey results, respondents’ confidence in credit unions rose to 63 percent, a few points up from the previous quarter’s 58 percent. Meanwhile the percentage of respondents who trust large banks dropped from 25 percent to 23 percent. In contrast, trust in small community banks got a more favorable 55 percent, up from 51 percent the previous quarter.

As a whole, trust in the overall financial system isn’t looking so good, down to only 21 percent of respondents stating that they do trust the system – the lowest result this category has seen since the March 2009 poll was taken as the global economic crisis steamrolled through the industry.

What else is on your members’ minds? Get more survey results from the article and see where people are putting their trust and what gives them cold feet.

Financial Regulators Address Cloud Security

In effort to help financial institutions address and understand the risk of cloud computing and avoid outsourcing haphazardly, the US Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) has published Outsourced Cloud Computing.

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This resource document stresses the importance of due diligence when shopping cloud service providers. Vendors may be unaware of the regulatory requirements applicable to financial institutions, but the financial institutions are still responsible for the compliance and security of their records and therefore must make sure their providers meet risk-management, compliance, quality-of-service, and cost standards.

Focused on business continuity planning, regulatory and legal compliance, audits, information security, vendor management, and due diligence, this FFIEC resource is an excellent guide for outsourcing cloud services and hammering out your vendor contracts and service-level agreements.

Read the story in CloudTimes and take advantage of this invaluable resource for your CU.

Operation High Roller Targets Corporate Bank Accounts

Two security firms say a new type of cyberattack is targeting corporate bank accounts.

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The attacks began in Europe but have spread to Latin America and the United States.

So far, hackers have attempted to steal at least $78 million in fraudulent transfers from accounts at 60 or more financial institutions.

Read the full article to learn more.

Financial Institutions Evaluate BiometricsApr

In a bid to boost security in the financial services industry, ISO, the world's largest developer of international standards, recently issued a new biometrics standard for financial firms.

Citing the trillions of dollars in daily transactions that "expose the financial community and its customers to severe risks from accidental or deliberate alteration, substitution or destruction of data," ISO pointed to "a strong need for an ironclad authentication method" as a driver behind the new biometrics standard.

The new ISO standard presents architectures for implementation, specifies the minimum security requirements for effective management, and provides control objectives and recommendations for biometric solutions. Biometrics includes technologies such as fingerprinting (many new IBM laptops feature fingerprint scanners); voice identification; iris recognition; hand geometry analysis, which measures various points on the hand and examines how the length of one finger relates to your other fingers; and vein recognition, which uses a light source to examine an individual's specific palm vein pattern.

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This is an interesting article on biometric identification security. Click here to read more: http://www.wallstreetandtech.com/regulatory-compliance/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=DYD3MT23K1MAUQSNDLRSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=207200167&_requestid=490501
or
http://tinyurl.com/5yw76d