Live data from Hacker News

Accepting payments is getting harder

medium.com

91–100 of 125 posts

Re: Accepting payments is getting harder

#91
post #52

We should have moved a long time ago to vendor specific credit card numbers (ecommerce isn't exactly a new activity). Say I get from my bank a token which I provide to this vendor, and the first time the vendor uses it to accept a payment, the token locks in to that vendor, i.e. my bank will not allow any payment with this token to another vendor (i.e. to another bank account). Then it doesn't matter if it's stolen,…

I like the PayPal model (vendor gets nothing), I just wish it could be federated...

Paypal is effectively using this token system. But why would we pay fees to a middle man when banks could do that directly.

Re: Accepting payments is getting harder

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real solution to the problem is use of an integrated circuit card, usually through EMV. If a web merchant uses 3D secure or Verified By Visa or SafeKey (from MC, Visa and AmEx respectively), the issuing bank can implement the same level of security in a web transaction that occurs in a card present chip transaction. Proof that the transaction was originated by someone who has control over the card, proof that the…

Verified by Visa is bad for the consumer: it shifts all the risk of fraud onto them. If the PIN is intercepted, and subsequent purchases are made with that PIN, the owner of the card is liable for all of those purchases; they are considered to have made them because their pin was present at the time of purchase.

That's generally been the case in Europe, but as I understand it this "liability shift" would be more difficult to enact in the U.S., because U.S. law has blanket limits on consumer liability for credit-card fraud (maximum $50 for card-present transactions and $0 for card-not-present). There are exceptions if the bank can show that you were negligent, e.g. you knew a card was stolen but failed to report it in a timely manner, but the burden of proof remains on the bank in those cases.

Re: Accepting payments is getting harder

#93
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TinFoil, I remember I invited you to speak at the Boston Security Meetup several years ago! >The real solution, as I see it, is to build automated security testing into your SDLC / Dev process. Penetration tests, when done by a good firm like Matasano, are incredibly useful, but lose their value the next time you push code. Building tools like Tinfoil into your CI process makes sure you don't get owned between pen te…

Ha, good to see you here. I'm not suggesting that there is absolutely no value to any of PCI. The fact that it forces you to think about security at all is already of some value. However, I am saying that passing a PCI audit is incredibly easy as compared to thorough automated testing, and especially compared to a (good) manual penetration test. Because you can pass a PCI audit relatively easily, people will do that…

>If you have to pick exactly /one/ thing to do in addition to (or instead of) PCI, building thorough automated security testing into your SDLC process is it.

I don't understand how SDLC secure testing is an addition to PCI when its really a sub requirement of PCI (Req 6 which addresses SDLC and secure code testing)

I'm going to rephrase because I'm still confused: You're saying that in addition to doing PCI, I should do a sub requirement of PCI.

Why does that sound like circular logic to me?

Re: Accepting payments is getting harder

#94
post #18

This is good. People are getting fed up with replacing their credit card every six months because some online retailer had a breach. You can outsource payment processing to Stripe, Paypal, Square, Yahoo Store, etc. There's no reason every web merchant should see credit card numbers. Stripe is in Visa's doghouse right now.[1] Their entry on the Visa Global Registry of Service Providers has turned yellow, with an expir…

The real solution to the problem is use of an integrated circuit card, usually through EMV. If a web merchant uses 3D secure or Verified By Visa or SafeKey (from MC, Visa and AmEx respectively), the issuing bank can implement the same level of security in a web transaction that occurs in a card present chip transaction. Proof that the transaction was originated by someone who has control over the card, proof that the…

>If a web merchant uses 3D secure or Verified By Visa or SafeKey (from MC, Visa and AmEx respectively)

then he better hope that all his competitors do to. It is a major hassle and risk for the consumer so I haven't set my card up to work with those. If it gets stolen it gets stolen but that can happen even if I get it verified.

Re: Accepting payments is getting harder

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We went through a SAQ D Service Provider 3.0, and paying for an ASV didn't hurt nearly as much as filling out that 80 page questionnaire... In fact, it reminded us apply some recent CVE's to our system before taking it to production. We used Comodo HackerGuardian which is $250/y, so you don't have to pay $1000s.

I think my tool can actually help you. You document all your procedures in an organized structure using Github flavored markdown. http://cc-stg2.herokuapp.com/compliancechimp/documents/softw... We're becoming the true Turbo Tax for compliance.

You probably have a good tool, but I am not even going to take a look at it when it doesn't have its own url. herokuapp just screams weekend project.

Re: Accepting payments is getting harder

#96
One of my side projects is a membership/subscription model Primary Care medical practice, and uses a third-party payment processor and we were recently audited by one of the large payment card issuers.

There was a finding that the third-party processor - which we specifically choose because many of their clients were major gyms with similar monthly membership models - was improperly processing our members payments. If I recall correctly, there is one standard for one time payments and a different standard to be used for recurring payments. A subscription model like ours allows our subscribers to use either, but the third-party processor used the one-time payment standard to process both one-time payments and monthly recurring payments. Even though recurring payments was a major selling point of the processor, when it came down to it, they were not even aware of the distinction and aware of the separate standard. We were actually quiet fortunate in that we had original signature agreements for each and every instance of a member who agreed to the recurring automated payment, but as I recall without those agreements there may have been some kind of repercussion.

Anyway it is a cautionary tale that just because you use a third-party, even a reputable one that serves national franchises, does not necessarily mean they know what they are doing.

Re: Accepting payments is getting harder

#97
What service might I use if I needed to fulfill the following requirements:

1) Say I already have a customer -- he already paid a signup fee and we charge him monthly, so he's already put in his credit card information. At a later date, we need to charge him for something other than his monthly subscription fee. This is something he can do himself by logging in, but also something the site administrator needs to be able to do by selecting his account and clicking a button. In this case, we do not want the user to have to re-enter his credit card information; we want this part to be seamless. Is there a payment API that can do this -- random one-off charges against an existing account without the user having to sign into the third-party service himself?

2) Is there a service that charges bank accounts directly -- as in they enter their bank account number instead of a credit card number? Other than PayPal --they seem to be the only one that does this.

Re: Accepting payments is getting harder

#98

What service might I use if I needed to fulfill the following requirements: 1) Say I already have a customer -- he already paid a signup fee and we charge him monthly, so he's already put in his credit card information. At a later date, we need to charge him for something other than his monthly subscription fee. This is something he can do himself by logging in, but also something the site administrator needs to be a…

For 2), it looks like Balanced payments accepts ACH debits.

https://www.balancedpayments.com/ach-debits

Re: Accepting payments is getting harder

#99
post #38

For what it's worth, PCI compliance as it stands today is complete BS. It provides a false sense of security and most of the PCI ASVs are the scourge of infosec. I can't tell you how many customers we have that use the cheapest possible PCI ASV for "compliance," but then use us in addition for "real security," despite the fact that we aren't an ASV. We've intentionally stayed away from becoming one thus far, actually…

> Penetration tests, when done by a good firm like Matasano, are incredibly useful, but lose their value the next time you push code.

I'd like to nicely but firmly push back on this one, and have longitudinal analysis of clients' applications to back it up. We put a lot of effort into helping our customers improve over time, both formally (writing helpful recommendations) and informally (educating developers during and after the test). There exist customers that ignore our advice, and don't improve, but most have a dramatic improvement in new code quality after the first assessment, and continue to year after year.

Re: Accepting payments is getting harder

#100

What service might I use if I needed to fulfill the following requirements: 1) Say I already have a customer -- he already paid a signup fee and we charge him monthly, so he's already put in his credit card information. At a later date, we need to charge him for something other than his monthly subscription fee. This is something he can do himself by logging in, but also something the site administrator needs to be a…

For 2), it looks like Balanced payments accepts ACH debits. https://www.balancedpayments.com/ach-debits

That's awesome!

If I can do recurring payments with that, it might make things a hell of a lot easier! Thanks!

Post reply on HN