Freelance

By Howard Altman

Freelance writer
Allston-Brighton Item, American Journalism Review, Applause, Asylum.com, Boston Phoenix, Boston Tab, Charlotte Observer, CQ Researcher, Daily Beast, The Detroit Free Press, Editor and Publisher, eHow, Featurewell.com, Greenpitch, Irish Independent, Kansas City Star, New York Observer, New York Post, The New York Times, Newsday, Penthouse, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Daily News, The Philadelphia Inquirer,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Politico, Salon, Sommerville Journal, Wired.com

Digital publication Banking Strategies / Executive Reports (member access)

  • Chernobyl Worries Continue As Russian Forces Move Back

    The Chernobyl nuclear power plant continues to be a source of concern for Ukraine’s military, even as Russian forces have turned control of the plant over to Ukrainians and appear to be withdrawing toward Belarus.

  • Marines Head To Lithuania As Russians Relent Around Kyiv

    After a month of setbacks, Russian officials said Tuesday, March 29, that the true goal of the invasion of Ukraine is not to conquer Kyiv but instead “the liberation of Donbas.” Does that claim match up with Western intelligence?

  • Ukraine’s Intel Chief: We Have Sources In The Kremlin, But We Need Jets

    Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov is not surprised that Russia is making little headway in its all-out assault on his nation. “We understood how it would go,” Budanov told me Friday morning, via a translator, in a far-ranging interview with Coffee or Die Magazine.

  • With Captured Tanks, Ukraine Now Has More Armor Than When The War Began

    The man standing near what appears to be a captured Russian T-72 tank is ecstatic. “Our guys commandeered a Russian tank,” he says, as it rolls by. “Now it will be ours.” The man’s battle cry for revenge highlights what Ukraine officials and independent observers say is a startling trend.

  • Russian Ship Burning In Ukraine Harbor, Hit By Missile Strike

    Ukrainian forces destroyed a large Russian landing ship Thursday, March 24, leaving the ship burning at its pier after a missile strike at the Ukrainian port of Berdyansk, about 50 miles southwest of the besieged city of Mariupol. A Ukrainian general confirmed the strike to Coffee or Die Magazine.

  • Why The Skies Over Ukraine Are A ‘Nightmare’ For Russian Pilots

    David Shank served as commandant of the US Army’s Air Defense Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, before retiring as a colonel, but when he considers how Russian pilots now see the airspace over Ukraine, he thinks it’s akin to how US troops viewed the side streets of Baghdad — full of dangers they couldn’t…

  • Seeking Public Reports, Ukraine Launches War Crimes Database

    In Mariupol, doctors and patients were taken hostage by Russian soldiers, Ukrainian officials said. In the town of Rubizhne, Russian shelling destroyed three schools, a hospital, and an institution for visually impaired children. Around Kharkiv and its suburbs, artillery crashed into three high-rise buildings, two private houses, yards, markets, parks, a hospital, and a kindergarten.…

  • China, Russian Mercenaries Active In Africa, Per Top US Generals

    On the 20th day of Russia’s war on Ukraine, two top American generals reminded lawmakers that recent inroads made by Russia and China in Africa and the Middle East demonstrate that Europe isn’t the only continent where U.S. influence is being challenged.

  • Russian Advances Stalled Across Ukraine as Training Facility Hit With Cruise Missiles

    Now 19 days into its invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces made little progress over the weekend of Saturday, March 12, a senior US defense official told reporters Monday afternoon. Russian cruise missiles hit a training facility — once used by Americans — near the Polish border.

  • Combating fraud from the very start

    BANKING STRATEGIES More than a year into a deadly pandemic that’s changed almost every aspect of our lives, financial institutions are still struggling to deal with the evolving security ramifications. For banks, the challenges begin with the start of their relationships with new clients, according to a recent report by BioCatch. The cybersecurity firm says…

  • Work from home presents a data security challenge for banks

    BANKING STRATEGIES The mass relocation of financial services employees from the office to their couch, dining table or spare room to stop the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus is a significant data security concern, several industry experts tell BAI. But they add that it is a challenge that can be managed with the right…

  • How community banks can avoid being targets for cyber crooks

    BANKING STRATEGIES For the National Bank of Blacksburg, Virginia, the nightmare scenario for community banks everywhere began with an employee ignoring basic cybersecurity hygiene. Russian hackers’ entry into NBB’s computer systems and network “most likely originated from a phishing email to a National Bank employee,” according to a 2018 lawsuit the bank filed against its…

  • Bankers beware: Deepfake technology is ever more real

    BANKING STRATEGIES As a British energy company executive listened to the voice on the other end of the phone line, the familiar German accent convinced him that he was speaking to his parent company’s CEO. So when the executive was instructed to wire $243,000 to the CEO’s bank account, he went ahead and did it.…

  • Bearing down on payments fraud in 2020

    BANKING STRATEGIES The times, as Bob Dylan once crooned in that raspy nasal whine, are a-changing—and no more so than in the ways bank customers make payments. And while he never got around to recording “The Times They Are a-Payments,” you have to wonder if his famous challenge to senators and congressmen would turn into…

  • Faster payments, faster payments fraud: How to battle the bad guys

    BANKING STRATEGIES When the Kansas City blues shouter Big Joe Turner first performed the immortal “Shake Rattle and Roll” in 1954, there was no way he could know the future hit might as well fit the mood of banks fighting payments perfidy. In essence, one lyric sums up the predicament the financial industry faces due…

  • Outhacking hackers: As Iran ramps up cyberattacks, banks find new ways to fight back

    BANKING STRATEGIES As tensions continue to mount in the Persian Gulf, bank security officials in the U.S. and elsewhere are keeping a wary eye on Iran, which has waged a series of cyberattacks against American business interests. And if you think that has nothing to do with the small-town bank on the corner, guess again. “Community…

  • Fraud on the home front: Spotting and stopping mortgage scams and schemes

    BANKING STRATEGIES To his victims, many elderly, Michael “Mickey” Henschel might have seemed like the homeowner’s hero, rescuing people over their heads on their mortgages. In reality, Henschel was not an angel of home possession but rather a devil possessed. In May, the 70-year-old career con man from Van Nuys, California, pleaded guilty in a…

  • Lessons from the Capital One data breach

    BANKING STRATEGIES It’s hard to imagine anything lucky about a data breach affecting more than 100 million customers. But Capital One got lucky because the Seattle woman accused of accessing the bank’s data was apparently as clueless as she was ruthless.   Paige Thompson, a Seattle tech worker arrested in connection with the data theft,…

  • How cyberthieves found blockchain’s weak link

    BANKING STRATEGIES Once upon a time, blockchain was hailed as an unbreachable means of transmitting wealth. But as BAI Banking Strategies pointed out in 2017, blockchain isn’t as foolproof as once touted. Yes, this was about a minority view as they come. But as experts noted, telling a hacker something absolutely can’t be hacked is…

  • The top five cyber threats for banks and how to meet them

    BANKING STRATEGIES Back in the days of the Wild West, rootin’ tootin’ bad hombres like Jesse James and Butch Cassidy struck fear into the hearts of bankers. But in the age of the Internet of Things, those names have been replaced by Cobalt, Carbanak, Lazarus, and Lurk—not an anti-law firm, but four covens for lawless…

  • How to combat common employee security mistakes

    BANKING STRATEGIES Whatever news the cheery Monday morning email passes on from the C-suite to the ground troops, everyone needs to make sure they absolutely, positive know who sent it. In fact, it’s paramount. All things being equal, the conscientious employee who opens and responds to that email right away can create a huge problem—especially…

  • How smart banks take the sting out of cybercrime

    BANKING STRATEGIES After about a year of having a small amount of funds withdrawn from his Citizens Bank account every month, Steve Puccia finally noticed the money was being taken out without his permission. “Every month there was a debit on my card from anywhere from $16 to $18 and it was always a website…

  • The call center commandment: Don’t put fraud protection on hold

    BANKING STRATEGIES As if you weren’t already wary about answering phone calls from unknown numbers, here’s another concern to consider. And it isn’t just talk—though you’ll want to watch what you say, how you say it and who you say it to. Here’s how it works: Imagine a caller/fraudster trying to “steal” your voice by…

  • Cybercrime 2.0: New ills, no pill for banking’s $600 billion headache

    BANKING STRATEGIES The cost of cybercrime across the world is staggering, with some estimates ranging as high as more than $22 trillion a year in direct losses and the cost to deal with the aftermath. And in the banking sectors, the withdrawals are stunning: somewhere north of $600 billion a year, according to one estimate…

  • Crytocurrency’s positive and negative: The need for electricity

    BANKING STRATEGIES Fintech wannabes, think inside the box: a seemingly magical 40-foot electrical box that will make money anywhere you take it and plug it in.  That, in essence, is what an Estonian company called NordCoin is pitching with something it calls a “Mobile Mining Container.” The devices are 40-foot shipping containers filled with high-powered…

  • The ultimate cryptocurrency exchange: volatility for respectability

    BANKING STRATEGIES Miguel Cervantes wasn’t a banker. But he might as well have had bitcoin on the brain when he wrote, “Madness is the coin of the realm.” That was in his book Don Quixote, named for a main character who was pretty adept at chasing after things that didn’t exist.  That in a nutshell…

  • Hacked together: How crooks create one fake person from many real people

    BANKING STRATEGIES On film, Frankenstein exists only as a mythical creation. But online, a monster of many parts recently rose from the cyberswamp to take hostage a 49-year-old tech exec from Charlotte, North Carolina. Alas, this tale from the digital crypt begins not on some operating table in a castle, but a car lot. The…

  • High-tech wrecking balls: The five biggest cyber threats to banks in 2018

    BANKING STRATEGIES Some people will go a long way to sidestep the potential cyber threats that artificial intelligence could unleash upon our planet. Like the planet next door. Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars and create a society free from the theoretical danger of AI. Of course, that danger isn’t currently…

  • It’s no secret: The Bank Secrecy Act needs a major overhaul

    BANKING STRATEGIES “Illicit actors,” notes says Scott Swanson, a financial crimes investigator with a big-four accounting firm, “run around the Bank Secrecy Act like it is a chained, aged, and toothless junk yard dog.” If that sounds like hyperbole, consider all the talk about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and one crucial detail…

  • Needles and PINs: From jackpotting to skimming, why ATMs are more vulnerable than ever

    BANKING STRATEGIES Five decades after they were first unveiled in Swinging London as marvels of secure, cash-dispensing convenience, automatic teller machines are more vulnerable than ever—thanks to a wide array of attacks that include skimming devices, malware, intercepted communications, outright theft of the machines—and a new technique known as “jackpotting.” To thieves who pull this…

  • Why North Korea’s cyber army threatens banks worldwide

    BANKING STRATEGIES The Hermit Kingdom, nuclear armed and firing off ballistic missiles, is estranged from the rest of the world and cut off from trade. But building missiles and nukes is not a cheap endeavor. So to fund these programs, Kim Jong-un—whose forbears built one of the most fearsome cyberwarfare programs in existence—is increasingly flexing…

  • Bitcoin’s potential underbelly: Is blockchain hackable?

    BANKING STRATEGIES When it comes to keeping your money safe, even the much-vaunted blockchain is no panacea, says Moran Cerf, a guy who knows a thing or two about cracking security. “Nothing is safe in our world,” says Cerf, who used to be a hacker. Cerf, who’s since hung up his black hat, is now…

  • Cybercrime, artificial intelligence and new frontiers in the battle against fraud

    BANKING STRATEGIES There is no blood being shed, but the digital world, through which banks transmit treasure and identity, is clearly a battlefield. And artificial intelligence systems—which can make their own decisions at speeds humans can’t comprehend—is fast becoming a game-changing weapon. On offense as well as defense. “Fraudsters are more agile than the banking…

  • Please continue to hold on: Call centers struggle to fight the rise of cyber fraud

    BANKING STRATEGIES You know how you hate to dial into a bank contact center and navigate all those artificial intelligence prompts before talking to a human? Well, the bad guys know how much you hate it. Which is why they love it. Using customer aversion to their advantage, cyber crooks pilfer billions from the often…

  • Fighting insecurity over cybersecurity

    BANKING STRATEGIES The executives of a small Nebraska bank scoffed at spending $500 to encrypt data coming into the bank’s website, a move that would have ensured a higher level of security. Why spend the money, the bank executives reasoned, when they could keep an eye on things? What could possibly go wrong? A lot,…

  • With emerging payments, emerging security concerns and consciousness

    BANKING STRATEGIES BAI’s reporting on banking security issues has found that regardless of the threat and response, fraudsters are rapidly adapting not only to security measures, but also to where and how customers access their accounts. Meanwhile, financial institutions face a delicate balancing act; increase security without scaring away customers. Getting that balance right may…

  • A vicious cybercycle: Hackers attack, banks react, hackers strike back

    BANKING STRATEGIES In banking’s cash-and-coin-only days, robbers walked up to tellers, pulled out a gun and said “stick ’em up.” These days, thieves can just walk up to an ATM, unarmed, and perform a digital variation you could call “stick ’em out.” Case in point: In April, a man walked up to a Russian bank…

  • The quest to secure payments security

    BANKING STRATEGIES When Darouny Bounsengsa bought her mobile phone at 17, she wasted little time diving into the digital payments world. “I use it primarily for checking my balance at a moment’s notice, but I have used it to deposit checks, locate branches and ATMS, and transfer funds between my accounts,” says the 21-year-old theater…

  • Lights, cameras, inaction threaten banking security

    BANKING STRATEGIES Back in the good old days, robbers had to show up at banks, guns drawn, to make illicit withdrawals. Good thing that security cameras were in place to catch the bad guys. But now—in an ironic, 21-Century feat of high-tech swindling—fraudsters can use those same cameras to access millions and millions of dollars,…

  • Fake folks, real threat: How synthetic fraud fools financial institutions

    BANKING STRATEGIES Parker Conrad’s LinkedIn page shows he has a thriving IT business, a loving family with “two princesses,” an electric car (a Chevy Volt, to be precise) and more than 500 connections. But here’s one thing it doesn’t show: Parker Conrad doesn’t exist. He is a fake persona, created by a Florida cyber security…

  • From hacks and attacks to guarding your back: Eight actions security-savvy banks need to take

    BANKING STRATEGIES An employee in the human resources department received an email that looked like it was from the boss and opened the attached word file. Only it wasn’t from the boss. And the attachment was what cybersecurity experts call malware, a virus that in this case gave the sender of the email access to…