ATLANTA, Sept. 8, 2011 – Responding to the recent guidance on Internet banking security from the FFIEC, First Data Corporation, a global leader in electronic commerce and payment processing, today outlined facts about its Internet banking security solution package.

First Data offers a set of products and services that are available both as integrated tools within First Data’s Internet banking platform and through relationships the company has developed with trusted security vendors. The solution set is designed to give financial institutions a spectrum of choices, helping them to comply with the FFIEC guidelines while enabling them to develop the layered security approach that meets their needs.

On June 28, the FFIEC issued a supplement to its Authentication in an Internet Banking Environment guidance, first issued in October 2005. The purpose of the supplement is to reinforce the risk-management framework described in the original guidance and update the FFIEC member agencies' supervisory expectations regarding customer authentication, layered security, and other controls in the increasingly hostile online environment.

First Data plans to host a complimentary webinar Sept. 8 to help clients understand the driving forces behind this update and how these new regulations affect their institutions.

“The new guidance has made it clear that financial institutions need to create layered security controls, as single solutions are much easier for fraudsters to work around,” said Julie Conroy-McNelley, senior analyst with Aite Group. “Financial institutions must apply a number of different approaches to more fully protect their Internet banking users. As such, it’s critical for a financial institution to be able to choose among technologies that work for its own market.”  

Within the past year, First Data has enhanced its Internet banking security through relationships with vendors that will offer tools to First Data’s Internet banking clients:

• IronKey’s Trusted Access provides a secure Web browser that is designed to meet FFIEC specifications for protecting online banking sessions and reducing risk of account takeovers. Trusted Access helps keep financial institution clients safe from crimeware attacks including keylogging, transaction tampering, session hijacking, and phishing sites.
• Laru Corp.’s ACH Clarity and Vision products for financial institutions provide ACH risk management, compliance and anomaly detection to help prevent fraud for all ACH transactions including online transactions.
• Trusteer's fraud prevention solutions include Trusteer Rapport, which is designed to prevent malware from infecting endpoints and compromising transactions and application authentication; and Trusteer Pinpoint, a server-side product that is designed to detect high risk transactions based on device, user and web transaction anomalies to reduce exposure to malware-driven fraud.

First Data also recently began offering the Symantec (formerly VeriSign) VIP security token service as a multi-factor authentication solution. These security vendor relationships build on First Data’s core Internet banking security features, providing a variety of tools to assist financial institution clients in meeting the new regulatory guidelines, including detecting and responding to suspicious activity during initial login and authentication of online banking customers and initiation of EFT transactions; providing enhanced controls over business administrative functions; and enabling multi-factor authentication, including out-of-band authentication and security token solutions

“While the FFIEC guidance provides guidelines, it does not prescribe specific technologies, leaving that to the financial institutions to decide what they need,” said Cindi Lieblich, vice president, Product Development, at First Data. “Our Internet banking security partnerships are an effective addition to First Data’s robust security infrastructure, helping to ensure we have a set of tools that help financial institutions comply with the latest FFIEC guidance and protect Internet banking users.”

About First Data
Around the world, every second of every day, First Data makes payment transactions secure, fast and easy for merchants, financial institutions and their customers. First Data leverages its vast product portfolio and expertise to drive customer revenue and profitability. Whether the choice of payment is by debit or credit card, gift card, check or mobile phone, online or at the checkout counter, First Data takes every opportunity to go beyond the transaction.

Contacts
Kim Graber, First Data
303-967-5172
kimberly.graber@firstdata.com