Posts Tagged: "security"

Regulations will likely start rolling out in the coming year starting at the state level. In May of last year, for example, the New York State Department of Financial Services released a report which said that the agency would add cybersecurity measures to the list of items that it investigates when evaluating a bank’s overall safety and soundness. New York, and New York City in particular, is home to a huge banking industry that represents some of our nation’s largest financial institutions, including American Express, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. According to remarks made by NYS DFS Superintendent Benjamin Lawsky in late February, state regulations could involve the use of multi-layer authentication systems for firms regulated by the DFS.

In this edition, we found a number of patent applications filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to protect technologies for customer loyalty rewards programs, including one innovative system for encouraging account holders to achieve long-term goals… Social networking platforms were at the core of a couple of patents recently issued to Bank of America, including one invention meant to help uncover potential social networking opportunities based on financial transactions. A couple of cybersecurity technologies, including one for isolating an infected client device to stop of the spread of a virus within a network, are also featured. We were also intrigued to share a patent protecting a method of presenting vehicle information of interest to someone who may want to buy a vehicle by capturing a video feed of that vehicle.

Throughout 2014, stories of major data breaches and hacking incidents have dominated the mainstream media. Customers of major corporations like Target, Home Depot, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Neiman Marcus have been the targets of malware, phishing schemes and other malicious acts of cyber crime within the past year. As a result, hackers have gained access to private information pertaining to tens of millions of financial accounts…. During 2013, there were a total of 7,577 patent applications filed with the USPTO in the field of cybersecurity. The vast majority of these patent applications are coming from the United States, with the most filings coming from the states of California, New York and Texas. The top five companies filing patents within this field were IBM, Symantec, Google, Microsoft and Samsung.

Home Depot may be the latest and largest breach to become news, but it’s certainly not the only one and hacking activity seems to be ramping up in the past few months. Malicious software known as Backoff, responsible for the Target breach, has also been identified as a potential culprit in recent breaches at Dairy Queen, Supervalu and United Parcel Service. Law enforcement officials have theorized that an Eastern European group may be responsible for a majority of these breaches because of links to Ukraine in the malware’s code… [R]ecent data breaches at major corporations have agitated some financial technology developers to look for more secure options for conducting transactions without cash. Many are touting a new wave of debit and credit cards which have microchips that improve data security as a possible answer.

We begin today by sharing our featured patent application with our readers, a technology designed to create a privacy zone to disable unauthorized functions in mobile devices which are within the zone. This would enable a meeting administrator to ensure that smartphone device owners cannot produce a recording of a meeting from within the privacy zone, for example. Other patent applications we explore discusses systems for transmitting calls and messages to the proper destination device for more effective communication between those who own multiple devices, as well as a system for better providing local advertisements to device owners who are on the go. Our exploration of AT&T’s recently issued patents features a couple of patents protecting technologies designed to improve calendar applications, including one system through which a professor or group administrator can update project deadlines so that all students or group members are aware of the change. Another patent is directed at a technology for parents who want to know when their children arrive at home from elsewhere. We also discuss a couple of patents featuring improvements to set top boxes for home media systems, including one method for freeing up space in video recording software by preventing against redundant media recordings.

Our featured application in today’s column discusses one Qualcomm technology designed to establish a call session across a network for the real time transmission of text messages. This data system could also be used to aid data transmission for mobile banking and other applications. We also discuss a couple of intriguing systems for detecting physical movement of a device owner, including one invention which provides a navigational guide for indoor environments. In our analysis of Qualcomm’s recently patented technologies, we delve into a trio of patents directed at wireless security, including one novel method for the easier management of password restrictions on a device. Other patents we discuss include systems for analyzing e-mail or other electronic messages prior to sending to exclude unintended recipients as well as a more resource-efficient system for monitoring of emergency alert broadcasts.

Today, we’ve profiled an assortment of patent applications and issued patents coming out of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that are assigned to Citigroup Technology of New York, NY; The Bank of America Corporation of Charlotte, NC; and JPMorgan Chase Bank, also of New York, NY. We’ve checked out a few inventions that show the desire of banking corporations to stem the recent tide of major identity theft scandals. Our featured application today takes a look at a new design for a magnetic stripe card reader that would have impeded the progress of criminals who recently stole personal financial information from millions of Target customers. Other patent applications we noticed include a system for identifying phishing websites that steal customer information across the World Wide Web, as well as a personal budgeting manager for financial accounts. These three banking companies have also been receiving patents from the USPTO at a fair clip in recent days, although Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase are paced well ahead of Citigroup in this regard. We discuss a couple of new banking inventions that aim to take advantage of mobile networks and devices, including one patent protecting a system of providing offers to individuals from nearby businesses. Other patents include a system of collecting unused coinage for redistribution among banks and systems for funding an account collectively among many contributors.