The inconveniences of the convenience credit cards
Contact-less credit cards have been one of the conveniences offered by credit card issuers for its clients. Some card issuers have even mailed it even without the express consent of the client. The reason behind this is that these credit card companies want their clients to spend more and fast.
While you start thinking about that, know this fact; these little devils, called smart cards by some, can easily be ripped off by credit card thugs everywhere.
Why are these smartcards so dangerous? The foremost reason is that they rely on radio frequency identification technology to transact. When you use smart cards, you do not have to hand over your credit card to the cashier, instead, you let your credit card information literally float on air. Just imagine how dangerous that could get. Remember all those rip offs reported via online transactions? This could be worse. It does look so much “futuristic” and card issuers insist it is safe and encrypted, but isn’t that what they say about online transactions too? One of the requirements which offer a bit of security to us is the signature we need to affix on the transaction receipt but with the smart card; this is not at all needed
There has been researches and experiments made on the security offered by the smart card. There was one team that was able to pull unencrypted names, account numbers, and expiration dates off contact-less credit cards via a home made scanner.
There was even a report on the New York Times about a contact less credit card inside an envelope that was used by a man to buy electronic equipment. This man made his purchase online and used credit card information pulled out from a smart card that was in an unopened letter.
How does this happen? Radio frequency technology has no on-off switch capability. When your contact less credit card gets printed, your credit card information is up for grabs by any scanner. Imagine dust floating on air that can be caught by ionizers; that is how this technology goes.
This technology is not new, that is why millions of hackers all over the world must have been able to study how to use them too. Radio frequency technology has been used for identification cards, toll booth electronic passes, clothes tags (goes beep if you did not pay for that thing you carried out of the store), pet id’s.
For those of us who feel that this danger can be contained and that credit cards using RFID technology is still a cool gadget, we can get credit card sleeves that block signals, or use aluminum foil.
Also, credit card issuers insist that these contacts fewer credit cards utilize very strong security. They have removed the cardholder’s name from the credit cards issued after the first batch and say that it would be harder for thieves to use card numbers without the name. Well, difficult but still not impossible.