Freelance Writing

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…

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…

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…

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.…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…