R. Kinney Williams & Associates
R. Kinney Williams
& Associates

Internet Banking News

February 26, 2006

CONTENT Internet Compliance Information Systems Security
IT Security Question
 
Internet Privacy
 
Website for Penetration Testing
 
Does Your Financial Institution need an affordable Internet security penetration-vulnerability test?  Our clients in 41 states rely on VISTA to ensure their IT security settings, as well as meeting the independent diagnostic test requirements of FDIC, OCC, OTS, FRB, and NCUA, which provides compliance with Gramm-Leach Bliley Act 501(b) The VISTA penetration study and Internet security test is an affordable-sophisticated process than goes far beyond the simple scanning of ports and focuses on a hacker's perspective, which will help you identify real-world weaknesses.  For more information, give Kinney Williams a call today at 806-798-7119 or visit http://www.internetbankingaudits.com/.

CONVENTION
- The week of March 6, 2006, I am attending the ICBA National Convention and Techworld in Las Vegas.  Please stop by my booth #539 to learn more about Internet and network security testing.  I look forward to meeting you.  R. Kinney Williams


FYI - Honeywell blames ex-employee in data leak - Payroll, other information on 19,000 workers was published on Web, company says - Honeywell International Inc. says a former employee has disclosed sensitive information relating to 19,000 of the company's U.S. employees. http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2006/0,4814,108434,00.html

FYI - Group Crafts Standards for Evaluating Outsourcers - Six large U.S. banks, an industry group and four major accounting firms joined forces in early 2004 to create standards for assessing the security practices of outsourcing vendors that work with financial services firms. http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2006/0,4814,108379,00.html

FYI - Brigham sent bank new moms' records - A world-renowned Hub hospital has been mistakenly faxing confidential patient information - including the results of tests for sexually transmitted diseases - to a Boston investment bank despite repeated attempts by the bank to stop it. http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=124753&format=text

FYI - Spyware cost firms $62B in 2005 - An alarming rise in the number of corporate data breaches, combined with a climbing sophistication of spyware threats and distribution methods, made 2005 the "biggest year yet for spyware," new research has claimed. http://www.scmagazine.com/us/news/article/540680/?n=us

FYI - Feds, firms complete cyberterror drill - Key infrastructure leaders have completed a trial run to measure reactions to a simulated cyberattack, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced. http://www.scmagazine.com/us/news/article/540857/?n=us

FYI - NIST Releases Revised Guide for Systems Security - The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released SP800-18, Guide for Developing Security Plans for Federal Information Systems. http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-18-Rev1/sp800-18-Rev1-final.pdf

FYI - Invasion of the Computer Snatchers - Hackers are hijacking thousands of PCs to spy on users, shake down online businesses, steal identities and send millions of pieces of spam. If you think your computer is safe, think again. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/14/AR2006021401342_pf.html


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WEB SITE COMPLIANCE -
Expedited Funds Availability Act (Regulation CC)

Generally, the rules pertaining to the duty of an institution to make deposited funds available for withdrawal apply in the electronic financial services environment. This includes rules on fund availability schedules, disclosure of policy, and payment of interest. Recently, the FRB published a commentary that clarifies requirements for providing certain written notices or disclosures to customers via electronic means. Specifically, the commentary to the regulations states that a financial institution satisfies the written exception hold notice requirement, and the commentary to the regulations states that a financial institution satisfies the general disclosure requirement by sending an electronic version that displays the text and is in a form that the customer may keep. However, the customer must agree to such means of delivery of notices and disclosures. Information is considered to be in a form that the customer may keep if, for example, it can be downloaded or printed by the customer. To reduce compliance risk, financial institutions should test their programs' ability to provide disclosures in a form that can be downloaded or printed. 

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SECURITY
We continue our series on the FFIEC interagency Information Security Booklet.  

SECURITY CONTROLS - IMPLEMENTATION

LOGICAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE ACCESS CONTROL 

AUTHENTICATION -
Biometrics (Part 2 of 2)

Weaknesses in biometric systems relate to the ability of an attacker to submit false physical characteristics, or to take advantage of system flaws to make the system erroneously report a match between the characteristic submitted and the one stored in the system. In the first situation, an attacker might submit to a thumbprint recognition system a copy of a valid user's thumbprint. The control against this attack involves ensuring a live thumb was used for the submission. That can be done by physically controlling the thumb reader, for instance having a guard at the reader to make sure no tampering or fake thumbs are used. In remote entry situations, logical liveness tests can be performed to verify that the submitted data is from a live subject.

Attacks that involve making the system falsely deny or accept a request take advantage of either the low degrees of freedom in the characteristic being tested, or improper system tuning. Degrees of freedom relate to measurable differences between biometric readings, with more degrees of freedom indicating a more unique biometric. Facial recognition systems, for instance, may have only nine degrees of freedom while other biometric systems have over one hundred. Similar faces may be used to fool the system into improperly authenticating an individual. Similar irises, however, are difficult to find and even more difficult to fool a system into improperly authenticating.

Attacks against system tuning also exist. Any biometric system has rates at which it will falsely accept a reading and falsely reject a reading. The two rates are inseparable; for any given system improving one worsens the other. Systems that are tuned to maximize user convenience typically have low rates of false rejection and high rates of false acceptance. Those systems may be more open to successful attack.


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INFORMATION SECURITY QUESTION:

B. NETWORK SECURITY

13. Determine if logs of security-related events are appropriately secured against unauthorized access, change, and deletion for an adequate time period, and that reporting to those logs is adequately protected.

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INTERNET PRIVACY
- We continue our series listing the regulatory-privacy examination questions.  When you answer the question each week, you will help ensure compliance with the privacy regulations.

Other Matters

Fair Credit Reporting Act

The regulations do not modify, limit, or supersede the operation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

State Law

The regulations do not supersede, alter, or affect any state statute, regulation, order, or interpretation, except to the extent that it is inconsistent with the regulations. A state statute, regulation, order, etc. is consistent with the regulations if the protection it affords any consumer is greater than the protection provided under the regulations, as determined by the FTC.

Grandfathered Service Contracts

Contracts that a financial institution has entered into, on or before July 1, 2000, with a nonaffiliated third party to perform services for the financial institution or functions on its behalf, as described in section 13, will satisfy the confidentiality requirements of section 13(a)(1)(ii) until July 1, 2002, even if the contract does not include a requirement that the third party maintain the confidentiality of nonpublic personal information.

Guidelines Regarding Protecting Customer Information

The regulations require a financial institution to disclose its policies and practices for protecting the confidentiality, security, and integrity of nonpublic personal information about consumers (whether or not they are customers). The disclosure need not describe these policies and practices in detail, but instead may describe in general terms who is authorized to have access to the information and whether the institution has security practices and procedures in place to ensure the confidentiality of the information in accordance with the institution's policies.

The four federal bank and thrift regulators have published guidelines, pursuant to section 501(b) of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, that address steps a financial institution should take in order to protect customer information. The guidelines relate only to information about customers, rather than all consumers. Compliance examiners should consider the findings of a 501(b) inspection during the compliance examination of a financial institution for purposes of evaluating the accuracy of the institution's disclosure regarding data security.

Next week we will start covering the examination objectives.

 

PLEASE NOTE:  Some of the above links may have expired, especially those from news organizations.  We may have a copy of the article, so please e-mail us at examiner@yennik.com if we can be of assistance.  

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