Kevin Gosschalk, founder and CEO at Arkose Labs, and other security industry leaders, see the recent rash of cybersecurity attacks as more opportunistic than sophisticated. In an interview with The Green Sheet, Gosschalk suggested consumers and business owners give too much credit to fraudsters, whom he described as low-level operatives. "Criminals are bulk-creating accounts to purchase expensive items, which they ship to themselves and resell at a markup," Gosschalk said. "To get the best return on investment, they automate the process with software and scripts to do this 10,000 times an hour, as opposed to doing it by hand."

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Dave.com, a digital banking app known for fee-free cash advances and user-friendly policies, disclosed on June 25, 2020, that hackers gained access to its user database, potentially putting 7.5 million users in harm's way. The company is cooperating with the FBI, law enforcement and security analysts in an ongoing investigation, according to Dave.com representatives. Reports indicate that hackers exploited Waydev, a Dave.com third-party service provider that had used an insecure encryption method to store user passwords. Investigators claim that Waydev used "bcrypt," a well-known hashing algorithm, to store the passwords, providing hackers with an exploitable cache of names, email addresses and personally identifiable data.

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The PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) unveiled a year-long blog series in January 2020 designed to improve gender diversity in the payment security profession. Closing the Gender Gap in Payment Security, highlights female security leaders who are shaping payments industry security, compliance and best practices, council representatives stated.

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Flywire, a vertically focused payments solution provider, disclosed July 21, 2020, that it partnered with the Beijing Overseas Study Service Association (BOSSA) to provide cross-border tuition services to schools, recruitment agents and Chinese students traveling abroad. The partnership expands on Flywire's ongoing work with education recruitment agents in China, many of whom are BOSSA members, according to Sharon Butler, executive vice president of education at Flywire.

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The Payment Choice Act of 2019 (HR-2650), which was introduced in the House on May 5, 2019, is gaining bipartisan support in Congress, most recently with companion bill S-4145, introduced July 1, 2020, by U.S. Senators Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ). Designed to protect U.S. currency as a viable payments option, the bills prohibit merchants from enacting cashless policies, posting anti-cash signage and surcharging cash transactions.

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Fraudsters hacked into a large swath of prominent U.S. Twitter users' accounts on July 15, 2020, posting scam fundraising requests or other traps involving Bitcoin. Posts appeared for a few minutes and then disappeared and, in some cases, were replaced by other fraudulent posts in rapid succession. Major interruptions to service occurred while Twitter addressed the issue. Several media organizations have reported this appears to be the worst hack to date of a major social media platform.

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Security analysts are warning consumers and business owners to enhance anti-fraud solutions to protect against a new wave of aggressive account takeover (ATO) attacks. A record-high trove of stolen data for sale in criminal forums underscores the need for multilayered security, experts say. Technology writer Ionut Ilascu suggested that two-factor authentication alone is insufficient to protect against ATO fraud.

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A July 7, 2020, meeting between Facebook and disgruntled advertisers failed to satisfy either side of an ongoing boycott against the social media giant. Stop Hate for Profit, organized by the NAACP, Anti-Defamation League and other civil rights groups, is a protest against Facebook's policies toward civil rights, consumer privacy, factual news and targeted hate speech. Its message is resonating with Unilever, Coca Cola and other brands, whose collective ad spend accounts for as much as 90 percent of Facebook's revenue, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

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The Federal Trade Commission and New York State Attorney General Letitia James are taking to task a merchant cash advance company that allegedly engaged in deceptive marketing and unfair collection practice, including threats of violence to compel business owners to repay money.

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Bankruptcies may be common among make-it-or-break-it fintechs, but the massive scale of Wirecard's demise sparked legal actions and discussions across the payments sphere. Financial analysts noted that Wirecard's public filing in German courts, comparable to a U.S. bankruptcy petition, shows the dark side of payments industry interdependence.

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The DeFi Money Market (DMM) ecosystem, a global community and movement focused on blockchain technology, believes future commerce will be bankless. Financial analysts see DMM's growing popularity as further proof that consumers are losing trust in financial institutions (FIs), particularly during COVID-19. "It's exciting to see the plethora of new practical solutions already being built on top of DMM's protocol," said Josef Holm, founding partner of Draper Goren Holm, a blockchain-focused venture studio. "We're specifically looking for the movers and shakers who will leverage our entire arsenal of portfolio companies and their technologies to create the blockchain products and services of tomorrow."

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