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Process for Applications and Remote
Control.
Svigals, now retired from IBM and
Director of the Smart Card Institute
in Silicon Valley, said SPARC
employs a key fob-type "security
key" that communicates via NFC
with smartphones to authenticate
users and allow legitimate
transactions to proceed. When a
consumer initiates a smartphone
payment, the key notifies the user
of whether to accept or decline the
transaction. A thumbprint button
on the key would both authenticate
the user and send the transaction
through for processing.
Svigals said his system accomplishes
three things: prevents fraudulent
transactions before the fact;
foils fraudsters because account
numbers are tokenized; and protects
malware from being downloaded to
smartphones.
Get Value for
your Portfolio, Value proposition
Robert Martin, Senior Vice President
No Strings Attached of Attendant Merchant Solutions
at wireless POS device specialist
Apriva LLC, said SPARC could be
Sell or leverage your existing portfolio effective in preventing fraudsters
to get access to the cash you need. from accessing stolen smartphones,
even if they steal the biometric
dongle with the car keys. But he
The process is quick and simple. asked two simple questions: "Is that
preferred? I don't know. What is the
cardholder willing to do?"
We buy portfolios from all processors.
Martin believes it is the job of
the payments industry to ensure
Easy to understand documents that consumers do as little as
and terms, resulting in fast closings.
possible. He said the industry could
effectively lock down mobile devices
with high-grade security, but it
Call us today to receive a quick
estimate for your portfolio and would be "incredibly onerous and
incredibly painful" for consumers,
get the cash you need today.
and ultimately self defeating. For
consumers to adopt a security
procedure, it must be easy.
"Consumers care about security the
moment they see that their account
Call 800-801-6242 x.1340 has been hit," Martin said. "It is our
or email us at responsibility in the industry to
agentinfo@AmericanCapitalAdvance.com make it so that they don't have to
www.americancapitaladvance.com/greensheet
think about security."
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But even if the winning solution
proves to be biometrics, it will not
make or break a mobile payment
scheme. Martin likened the current
state of mobile payments to that of
e-commerce back in the 1990s. "If you
look at e-commerce when it first came
out, people were very concerned
about using their card numbers
online," he said. "Then once they
saw sufficient value in e-commerce
and sufficient protection in terms of
fund protection, fraud protection for
the consumer, then they got over it."
Breaking the rules
As a mobile parking payment app
developer, the Pango app operates
beneath the first layer of password/
PIN security. Dani Shavit, CEO of
Israel-based Pango Mobile Parking
Ltd., said if a biometric marker
makes up the first layer, that does
not mean fraudsters won't find a
way to circumvent it.
Shavit noted that the new Galaxy
S4 smartphone manufactured by
Samsung, which earned the seal
of approval from the Pentagon for
its security, was unlocked within a
week of its release. "As technology
enhances, the highjackers also
enhance [their techniques]," he said.
That is why biometrics should not
be viewed as a foolproof solution in
itself. Biometrics may thus provide a
somewhat illusory sense of security
for consumers. Shavit said the main
thing is that "the user has the feeling
that he's in control. It's all about
feeling. It's not a real thing."
Mobile security is not about
eliminating fraud anyway, but
reducing risk, according to Shavit.
The way that is accomplished
is through a layered approach
to security. "If you succeed in
penetrating the first layer, you will
be blocked from the second," he
said. "If you succeed in penetrating
the second, you will be blocked from
the third."
Shavit believes the dongle approach
to mobile security might work as
an intermediate step, but it is not