With concern mounting about the adequacy of commonly used authentication technologies in online transactions, a technique devised by a major credit-reporting agency to secure the sale of consumer credit reports online is finding adoption among financial institutions and could appeal to Internet merchants. Equifax Information Services LLC is actively licensing …

Up to now, phishing schemes only worked if the fraudsters could entice recipients of their e-mail to visit transaction sites tricked up to look like the real thing, such as a fake eBay site or spoofed online banking site. The sites would collect login and other confidential information the criminals …

Just ahead of the holiday shopping season, VeriSign Inc. has introduced a new mark that e-commerce sites can display to reassure shoppers about the security of their payments. The VeriSign Secured Seal denotes that a Web site uses Secure Sockets Layer encryption and other technologies?including the company's gateways–to guard customer …

The National Automated Clearing House Association is mulling an idea for a new point-of-sale electronic check product that it hopes might overcome some of the obstacles its existing POS service, called POP, has run into. Tentatively called “back-office conversion,” or BOC, the idea would allow merchants to send all checks …

Debit card fraud in Canada last year amounted to $44 million ($34 million U.S.), which criminals drained from some 27,000 accounts, according to data recently compiled by Interac, the national electronic funds transfer network. The study represents the first attempt in Canada to measure fraud losses sustained by holders of …

America West Airlines, a unit of America West Holdings Corp., has become the first airline to adopt I4 Commerce Inc.'s Bill Me Later Internet payment system. To encourage usage of the new payment option, the Phoenix-based air carrier is offering deferred billing for 90 days or more to qualified customers, …

The market for wireless point-of-sale credit and debit card transactions is about to heat up. Founded in 2002, Boston-based Way Systems Inc. is introducing a point-to-point processing system that includes mobile phones equipped with card swipes, security and transaction programming, and keypads for personal identification numbers. The swipe, keypad, and …

Nine electronic funds transfer networks have now approved a $1,600 retrofit kit from a Cincinnati-based ATM refurbisher and servicer for use in ATMs on their systems. The kit, called 3DESPlus, allows ATM owners to upgrade existing machines to make them comply with new security requirements from the bank card companies …

Although some issuers and processors have soured on so-called single-use or proxy numbers for secure Internet transactions, Discover Financial Services Inc. has just rolled out an advanced version of its own single-use system and plans very soon to begin a major marketing campaign for it. The most significant feature of …

A new trade group formed to fight phishing fraud argues it will work on approaches to the problem that will distinguish it from the efforts of another organization that emerged last year to combat the online fraud. The Trusted Electronic Communications Forum, whose formation was announced this week, is aimed …