Booklet: E-Banking
Section: Appendix B: Glossary
 

 

 

 

 

 

Account aggregation A service that gathers information from many websites, presents that information to the customer in a consolidated format and, in some cases, may allow the customer to initiate activity on the aggregated accounts. Aggregation services typically involve three different entities: (1) The aggregator that offers the aggregation service and maintains information on the customer's relationships/accounts with other on-line providers. (2) The aggregation target or website/entity from which the information is gathered or extracted by means of direct data feeds or screen scraping. (3) The aggregation customer who subscribes to aggregation services and provides customer IDs and passwords for the account relationships to be aggregated.
Account management Activities such as balance inquiry, statement balancing, transfers between the customer’s accounts at the same financial institution, maintenance of personal information, etc.
Automated clearing house (ACH) Computer-based clearing and settlement facility for interchange of electronic debits and credits among financial institutions.
Administrative access Individuals or terminals authorized to perform network administrator or system administrator functions.
Aggregation See Account aggregation.
Antivirus software Computer programs that offer protection from viruses by making additional checks of the integrity of the operating system and electronic files. Also known as virus protection software
Authentication Verification of identify by a computer system based on presentation of unique credentials to that system.
Automatic log-on A feature offered by some aggregation services allowing customers to log on by clicking on a hyperlink and thereby causing the usernames and passwords stored at the aggregator to be used to log onto other websites.
Bill payment An e-banking application whereby customers direct the financial institution to transfer funds to the account of another person or business. Payment is typically made by ACH credit or by the institution (or bill payment servicer) sending a paper check on the customer's behalf.
Bill presentment An e-banking service whereby a business submits an electronic bill or invoice directly to the customer's financial institution. The customer can view the bill/invoice on-line and, if desired, pay the bill through an electronic payment.
Biometrics The method of verifying a person's identify by analyzing a unique physical attribute of the individual (e.g., fingerprint, retinal scanning).
Cellular telephone A wireless telephone that communicates using radio wave antenna towers, each serving a particular “cell” of a city or other geographical area. Areas where cellular phones do not work are referred to as “dead zones.”
Certificate authority (CA) The entity or organization that attests using a digital certificate that a particular electronic message comes from a specific individual or system.
Check digits A digit in an account number that is calculated from the other digits in the account number and is used to check the account number’s correctness/validity.
Digital certificate The electronic equivalent of an ID card that authenticates the originator of a digital signature.
Direct data feed A process used by information aggregators to gather information directly from a website operator rather than copying it from a displayed webpage.
DMZ Abbreviation for “demilitarized zone.” A computer or small subnetwork that sits between a trusted internal network, such as a corporate private LAN, and an untrusted external network, such as the public Internet.
DNS server Abbreviation for “Domain Name Service server.” A computer that determines Internet Protocol (IP) numeric addresses from domain names presented in a convenient, readable form.
E-banking The remote delivery of new and traditional banking products and services through electronic delivery channels.
E-mail server A computer that manages e-mail traffic.
Encryption A data security technique used to protect information from unauthorized inspection or alteration. Information is encoded so that it appears as a meaningless string of letters and symbols during delivery or transmission. Upon receipt, the information is decoded using an encryption key.
Firewall A hardware or software link in a network that relays only data packets clearly intended and authorized to reach the other side.
Framing A frame is an area of a webpage that scrolls independently of the rest of the webpage. Framing generally refers to the use of a standard frame containing information (like company name and navigation bars) that remains on the screen while the user moves around the text in another frame.
Gateway server A computer (server) that connects a private network to the private network of a servicer or other business.
Hacker An individual who attempts to break into a computer without authorization.
Hardening The process of securing a computer’s administrative functions or inactivating those features not needed for the computer’s intended business purpose.
Hash totals A numerical summation of one or more corresponding fields of a file that would not ordinarily be summed. Typically used to detect when changes in electronic information have occurred.
Hosting See Website hosting.
HTML Abbreviation for “Hypertext Markup Language.” A set of codes that can be inserted into text files to indicate special typefaces, inserted images, and links to other hypertext documents.
Hyperlink An item on a webpage that, when selected, transfers the user directly to another location in a hypertext document or to another webpage, perhaps on a different machine. Also simply called a “link.”
Internet service provider (ISP) A company that provides its customers with access to the Internet.
Interface Computer programs that translate information from one system or application into a format required for use by another system or application.
Internet A cooperative message-forwarding system linking computer networks all over the world.
Interoperability standards/protocols Commonly agreed on standards that enable different computers or programs to share information. Example: HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is a standard method of publishing information as hypertext in HTML format on the Internet.
Intrusion detection system (IDS) Software/hardware that detects and logs inappropriate, incorrect, or anomalous activity. IDS are typically characterized based on the source of the data they monitor: host or network. A host-based IDS uses system log files and other electronic audit data to identify suspicious activity. A network-based IDS uses a sensor to monitor packets on the network to which it is attached.
Kiosk A publicly accessible computer terminal that permits customers to directly communicate with the financial institution via a network.
Legacy systems A term commonly used to refer to existing computers systems and applications with which new systems or applications must exchange information.
Lockout The action of temporarily revoking network or application access privileges, normally due to repeated unsuccessful logon attempts.
Mnemonic A symbol or expression that can help someone remember something. For example, the phrase “Hello! My name is Bill. I'm 9 years old.” might help an individual remember a secure 10-character password of “H!MniBI9yo.”
Network administrator The individual responsible for the installation, management, and control of a network.
Outsourcing The practice of contracting with another entity to perform services that might otherwise be conducted in-house.
Passwords A secret sequence of characters that is used as a means of authentication.
Patching Software code that replaces or updates other code. Frequently patches are used to correct security flaws.
Penetration test The process of using approved, qualified personnel to conduct real-world attacks against a system so as to identify and correct security weaknesses before they are discovered and exploited by others.
Personal digital assistant (PDA) A pocket-sized, special-purpose personal computer that lacks a conventional keyboard.
PKI Abbreviation for “public key infrastructure.” The use of public key cryptog-raphy in which each customer has a key pair (i.e., a unique electronic value called a public key and a mathematically-related private key). The private key is used to encrypt (sign) a message that can only be decrypted by the cor-responding public key or to decrypt a message previously encrypted with the public key. The public key is used to decrypt a message previously encrypted (signed) using an individual's private key or to encrypt a message so that it can only be decrypted (read) using the intended recipient’s private key. See Encryption.
Pop-up box A dialog box that automatically appears when a person accesses a webpage.
Private key See PKI.
Proxy server An Internet server that controls client computers’ access to the Internet. Using a proxy server, a company can stop employees from accessing undesirable websites, improve performance by storing webpages locally, and hide the internal network's identity so monitoring is difficult for external users.
Public key See PKI.
Repudiation The denial by one of the parties to a transaction of participation in all or part of that transaction or of the content of the communication.
Router A hardware device that connects two or more networks and routes incoming data packets to the appropriate network.
Screen scraping A process used by information aggregators to gather information from a customer’s website, whereby the aggregator accesses the target site by logging in as the customer, electronically reads and copies selected information from the displayed webpage(s), then redisplays the information on the aggregator’s site. The process is analogous to “scraping” the information off the computer screen.
Script A file containing active content; for example, commands or instructions to be executed by the computer.
Server A computer or other device that manages a network service. An example is a print server that manages network printing.
Smart cards A card with an embedded computer chip on which information can be stored and processed.
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) An encryption system developed by Netscape. SSL protects the privacy of data exchanged by the website and the individual user. It is used by websites whose names begin with https instead of http.
Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) Reports required to be filed by the Bank Secrecy Act when a financial institution identifies or suspects fraudulent activity.
Tokens A small device with an embedded computer chip that can be used to store and transmit electronic information.
Topology A description of any kind of locality in terms of its physical layout. In the context of communication networks, a topology describes pictorially the configuration or arrangement of a network, including its nodes and connecting communication lines.
URL Abbreviation for “Uniform (or Universal) Resource Locator.” A way of specifying the location of publicly available information on the Internet, in the form: protocol://machine:port number/filename. Often the port number and/or filename are unnecessary.
Virtual mall An Internet website offering products and services from multiple vendors or suppliers.
Virtual private network (VPN) A wide-area network interconnected by common carrier lines or that uses the Internet as its network transport.
Virus Malicious code that replicates itself within a computer.
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) A data transmission standard to deliver wireless markup language (WML) content.
Weblinking The use of hyperlinks to direct users to webpages of other entities.
Website A webpage or set of webpages designed, presented, and linked together to form a logical information resource and/or transaction initiation function.
Website hosting The service of providing ongoing support and monitoring of an Internet-addressable computer that stores webpages and processes transactions initiated over the Internet.
Wireless gateway server A computer (server) that transmits messages between a computer network and a cellular telephone or other wireless access device.
Wireless phone See Cellular telephone.
Worm A program that scans a system or an entire network for available, unused space in which to run. Worms tend to tie up all computing resources in a system or on a network and effectively shut it down.