Financial Security Guides

For Financial Institutions

Tokenization:

Makes stolen data useless for fraud

Tokenization not only reduces the chance of fraud, but also helps encourage payment innovation. By building on a foundation of security, we can bring more trust to payments as capabilities expand to mobile devices and the Internet of Things.

https://visaready.visa.com/

Biometrics:

Can better identify accountholders

Biometrics such as fingerprint, facial recognition, voice, and more can provide more convenient and secure alternatives to signatures or PINs and help prevent fraud while making it easier to pay securely.

EMV chip:

Prevents counterfeit fraud Chip technology brings more intelligent security to payment cards by generating a unique one-time code that cannot be reused, which reduces counterfeit card fraud, the leading type of payment card fraud in stores.

https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.releaseld.2087828.html

https://www.visa.com/chip/personal/security/chip-technology/emv-chip.jsp

https://www.visa.com/chip/personal/security/chip-technology/index.jsp

Predictive analytics:

Identifies fraud before it happens Visa can identify potential fraud in real time with technology that can analyze up to 500 unique risk attributes of any transaction and determine the likelihood the transaction is fraudulent.

https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/security/outsmarting-fraudsters-with-advanced-analytics.html

Account controls:

Offers consumers visibility + control Visa Consumer Transaction Controls let cardholders of participating financial institutions set spending controls, receive transaction alerts via text, app or email, or even temporarily suspend their cards with simple on/off feature. With real-time visibility and control over their accounts, consumers can take immediate action to protect themselves from security threats and potential fraud.

https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/security/putting-consumers-in-charge-of-security.html

Mobile geo-location:

Helps approve valid transactions Matching the location of a transaction to the location of the consumer’s enrolled mobile device provides greater intelligence when analyzing transactions and helps participating financial institutions more confidently approve purchases.

https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/innovation/paying-while-traveling.html

https://usa.visa.com/visa-everywhere/innovation/visa-mobile-location-confirmation.html

Latest News:

2019

Top tips for financial institutions looking to address fraud in invoice financing

2018

10 ways to improve your FinTech App Security

2017

Terdot Banking Trojan – Removal Tool and Protection Guide

2017-11-23

A banking infection first seen in October 2016 has grown into an advanced hacking tool that is originally a banking trojan but can also be used as an info stealer or backdoor. Terdot is the new malware we are talking about.

So, What is Terdot?
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Terdot is a banking trojan, it is not a widespread threat, just yet. Meanwhile, this trojan has been targeting the Canadian bank customers, spread by the Sundown exploit kit and through malicious emails.

While the Sundown exploit kit has been the essential strategy for circulation, the messages, specifically, are very bizarre, as they just have a picture of a PDF icon and if the user clicks this picture, this triggers destructive JavaScript code that downloads and runs the Terdot malware.

Because of its bounded attack strategy, Terdot's attacks had gone to a great extent unreported, until the point that last week when Bitdefender experts distributed a 32-page write about the trojan's internal workings.

Terdot reflects the same codes used by Zeus banking trojan:
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This banking trojan is not that unique as it was earlier thought to be. Its design or coding resembles the source code of the popular Zeus banking trojan that was widespread online in 2011.

There are numerous other banking trojans live. However, the group behind Terdot was not pleased with the standard features of Zeus. Instead, they extended the codebase and enhanced its assault techniques.

The things that Terdot adapted from Zeus were merely the ways it used to evade a system without being noticed by the firewall of the system, and the means it authorizes administrator rights to control what pages Terdot targets and how.

Everything else is new, and there's a considerable measure of it. As indicated by Bitdefender, Terdot is also designed to operate the local MitM proxy server to sniff and reroute web activity, can target something beyond banking websites, and can likewise download and execute files from a remote server.

Uses legit software’s to enter the system
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To perform a significant portion of its operations, Terdot doesn't depend on custom code that may trigger cautions from security software but utilizes legitimate software that are whitelisted. The utilization of legal software for malicious operations has been on trend whole year.

Terdot targets Canadian banks and social accounts:
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Bitdefender says it distinguished Terdot focusing on the accompanying Canadian banks: CFinancial, Banque Nationale, Desjardins, the Toronto Dominion Bank, BMO, Royal Bank, Scotiabank, Tangerine Bank, and CIBC.

However, the trojan likewise looks for login certifications from a wide range of locales, for example, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Live.com, and YouTube. Bitdefender says it discovered code that mainly guides the trojan to avoid gathering credentials for VK.com, Russia's greatest interpersonal organization, which says a lot about the whereabouts of Terdot's creators.

Bitdefender's report also states it to be a well-planned attack which means it is not a work of some casual hacker. It comes with an advanced anti-VM evasion systems and is downloaded in different ways to avoid detection, and utilization of a Domain Generation Algorithm (DGA) to create unique domains for its Command and Control Centre, making it harder to eliminate it.

Likely the most developed Terdot part is its MitM proxy. This tool gets links itself to the networking sockets of the operating system to hijack the traffic and can even read HTTPS connections since it utilizes an authentic executable part of Mozilla's NSS Tools bundle so that it adds its certificate to Operating systems store and read SSL activity.

The MitM proxy is utilized as a part of conjunction with the browser infusion technique to get hold of the credentials. For the websites that do not support the browser infusion technique, Terdot reads raw network requests to extract credentials or add malicious code in the network request to ensure it loads malicious code to log the login data.

In the past two weeks, Terdot becomes the second banking trojan after IcedID banking trojan, which was discovered by IBM's X-Force group.

Tips to Prevent "Terdot Banking Trojan" from Infecting Your System:
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Enable your popup blocker: Pop-ups and ads in the websites are the most adoptable tactic used by cybercriminals or developers with the core intention to spread malicious programs. So, avoid clicking uncertain sites, software offers, pop-ups etc.

Keep your Windows Updated: To avoid such infections, we recommend that you should always keep your system updated through automatic windows update. By doing this you can keep your device free from virus. According to the survey, outdated/older versions of Windows operating system are an easy target.

Third-party installation: Try to avoid freeware download websites as they usually install bundled of software with any installer or stub file.

Regular Backup: Regular and periodical backup helps you to keep your data safe in case the system is infected by any kind of virus or any other infection. Thus always backup important files regularly on a cloud drive or an external hard drive.

Always have an Anti-Virus: Precaution is better than cure. We recommend that you install an antivirus like McAfee or a good Malware Removal Tool like Download Free Virus RemovalTool

Install a powerful ad- blocker for Chrome, Mozilla,and IE.

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