Tag Archive for: wallet

Big banks’ proposed digital wallet payment system likely to fail

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A group of leading banks is partnering with payment service Zelle’s parent company to create their own “digital wallet” connected to consumer credit and debit cards to enable online or retail store payments.

The new payment service, however, must compete with entrenched digital wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay that are embedded on mobile devices and already well established. It’s also not the first attempt for some in the consortium to create a digital wallet payment service.

The consortium includes Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and four other financial services companies, according to The Wall Street Journal. The digital wallet, which does not yet have a name, is expected to launch in the second half of this year.

The system will be managed by Zelle’s parent company, Early Warning Services LLC (EWS). It will have about 150 million Visa and Mastercard credit and debit cards connected at launch, with plans to add other card networks later, according to an EWS blog.

“Early Warning is working closely with financial institutions to build a wallet that provides consumers a secure and easy way to pay,” James Anderson, EWS’ managing director of Wallet, said in the blog. “The wallet will also aim to deliver better business outcomes for merchants — including higher transaction approval rates and more completed sales.”

The consortium’s digital wallet will be a standalone service, not something under Zelle’s service, according to reports. It’s expected to compete with other digital wallet payment services such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Neo. And it will be up against other digital wallets run by banks, such as Revolut, Monzo and Curve and payment organizations that offer PayPal and Venmo.

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Protecting cryptocurrency assets in wake of the Solana Wallet hack

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The incident has brought up numerous concerns regarding the security provided by both the Solana network and “hot” wallets, which are fairly popular with the typical crypto investor, with cryptocurrency assets worth more than $8 million taken from about 8,000 people.

Cause of Solana attack unknown

While Solana’s Twitter account was quick to point out that the attack was not caused by a software compromise on the network, it also stated that its team of engineers was assiduously working with security researchers and ecosystem teams to determine the cause of this wallet attack.

According to preliminary investigations, hardware wallets used by Slope were safe from this issue because they only affected the Slope wallet on the Solana ecosystem.

According to Solana, impacted wallet addresses had their private key information sent to an application monitoring service at some point when they were generated, imported, or used in Slope mobile wallet programs.

Solana has already urged investors affected by the attack to abandon the affected wallets as they could still be compromised even after revoking wallet approvals. While the exact modus operandi employed is still unknown, crypto industry leaders have highlighted that the suspect transactions were properly signed, further indicating that it could be a supply chain attack with a specific focus on Slope ‘hot’ wallet users.

Applications, and devices can be hacked

Applications (software) and devices can be hacked. Since private keys are stored in application and device wallets, hackers can access them and steal your cryptocurrency and that sums up the Solana hack.

And if your wallet has been compromised, it’s paramount that you transfer any existing funds from your compromised wallet to another wallet.

Hackers will wipe your account of funds immediately, but if you’re lucky and they have not done this yet, it’s time for investors to take immediate action.

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Google Wallet Returns, Replaces Google Pay on US Phones

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Surprise, Google’s got a new app. OK, you’re probably not all that surprised. Google has always had an on-again, off-again relationship with the housemade apps that Android phones use to access its services. Specifically, Google often likes to make big changes to them, rebrand them, or just suddenly kill them dead with little explanation. The latest Google app update is actually a resurrection: Google Wallet has returned to store all your cards and personal info.

“But wait,” you ask, “isn’t Google Pay a thing? Doesn’t it already do that?” Well yes, it does. In fact, back when the Google Pay app launched, it replaced the old versions of Google Wallet and Android Pay on mobile phones. But at its IO event in May, Google announced it was bringing Wallet back with some new features that aren’t included with Pay.

Here are the differences. Google Pay can store credit card info and link to digital payment services like PayPal. It can also hold airline boarding passes, proof of vaccination cards, and some transit cards. The new Google Wallet can also do all of those things, plus store your driver’s license and unlock your car if you drive a vehicle that supports digital keys.

The Google Pay app on your phone will be replaced by the Google Wallet app soon, and all your payment info and other stuff you have stored in Google Pay will show up in Google Wallet. Google will also scrub your email for gift cards or any company’s loyalty programs you’re enrolled in. (For example, when I first logged into Google Wallet, it instantly pulled up my Southwest Airlines rapid rewards number, a thing I had completely forgotten I had.) Just know that if you delete the emails containing that info, then those data will disappear from Wallet.

For most countries, these new features will just be added as updates to the existing Google Pay app. But if you’re in the US or Singapore, Wallet and Pay will be two separate apps going forward. Confusing? Yes. Quintessentially Google? Very much so. It’s especially odd considering Google mashed together two of its video chat apps just last month.

If you’re confused, just get and use the Google Wallet app. It has the newest features, it feels very…

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NFT, DeFi and crypto hacks abound — Here’s how to double up on wallet security

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The explosiveness and high dollar value of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) seem to either distract investors from upping their operational security to avoid exploits, or hackers are simply following the money and using very complex strategies to exploit collectors’ wallets.

At least, this was the case for me way back when after I fell for a classic message sent to me over Discord that caused me to slowly but all too quickly lose my most valuable assets.

Most of the scams on Discord occur in a very similar fashion where a hacker takes a roster of members on the server and then sends direct messages to them in hopes they will bite at the bait.

“It happens to the best of us,” are not the words you want to hear in relation to a hack. Here are the top three things I learned from my experience on how to double-up on security, starting with minimizing the use of a hot wallet and simply ignoring DM’d links

A quick crash course in hardware wallets

After my hack, I was immediately reminded and I cannot reiterate it enough, never share your seed phrase. No one should be asking for it. I also learned that I could no longer forego security at the privilege of convenience.

Yes, hot wallets are much more seamless and quicker to trade with, but they do not have the added security of a pin and a passphrase like they do on a hardware, or cold, wallet.

Hot wallets like MetaMask and Coinbase are plugged into the internet, which makes them more vulnerable and susceptible to hacks.

Contrary to hot wallets, cold wallets are applications or devices whereby the user’s private keys are offline and do not connect to the internet. Since they operate offline, hardware wallets prevent unauthorized access, hacks and typical vulnerabilities by systems, something which are susceptible to when they are online.

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