New Ways of Identity Theft
The thieves are always wide awake.
One of the foolish ways of credit card identity theft is when a person just falls for the bait. The rip-off then occurs in the following fashion: the cheater sham to be from the security and fraud service at a credit card company. Then giving his ID number, as if processing a fraudulent charge on your card, the person tells you your credit card number.
All you need is to reveal the security number on the reverse of your plastic to credit the charge back to your account. Having the security number, the cheater can make many fraudulent purchases. Still, this trick is old and is intended for naive consumers. But even experienced customers, who are hip to the latest credit card trends, may become the victims of scammers.
Even if you carry your credit card in the back pocket, its implanted radio-frequency marks that help you making purchases may become a thief's target. Scanned individual information you keep on your credit card may be stolen as easy as you spend your money in a shop. Credit cards of such type amount to millions, and when you learn the plastic, consider that credit cards send a radio signal which cannot be blocked or switched off. These contact-free credit cards depend on radio frequency identification equipment to quicken selling operations, when only shaking our credit card before a scanner is required. However, your signature is ignored and everything passes more rapidly.
For instance, MasterCard, Visa and American Express produce contact-free credit cards (MasterCard's PayPass). Credit card companies guarantee these operations are coded and this equipment is safe, but not unique in fact.
However, some revealed cases of thievery like free hacked gas, or coded names and account data of contact-free credit cards with a home-produced scanner, or buy electronic gear online using information stolen from a contact-free credit card in an envelope.
Credit cards security hole in your pocket
A graduate student Tom Heydt-Benjamin in his experimental demonstration showed possible security holes in the new invention. Credit cards data is radio transmitted without and can do without a signature or physical touch.
Now imagine we use these credit cards at an incredible number of places, including drugstores, restaurants and movies. Credit card companies announce that the information is coded to ensure that the digital equipment cannot get any understandable details.
Though American Express and other credit cards use the maximum level of ciphering allowed by the US administration, 20 tested cards (American Express, Visa and MasterCard) showed that the card owner's data was sent out directly, without ciphering.
During the research people could scan and collect the information from a credit card with a tool the size of two paperbacks. It was assembled from a computer at hand and 150 dollars' radio components. Who knows may be next time it will be even smaller and for less than 50 dollars.
Doesn't this tell you of a security hole? Credit cards can be examined through a wallet or clothes, so the risk can really exist. Credit card companies reason that the frightful lab research will not result in common credit card abuse in reality, and that extra data security. So the newest anti-fraud methods in the payment procedures safeguard customers all the way through.
The investigation is connected with mistrust among privacy supporters and customer groups to the security of RFID equipment. Besides, investigators have found that the distance between the scanner and the card can be extended.
However, the credit card companies disagree that testing only twenty credit cards proved an exact representation of the credit card market. Usually higher security standards are used - and the research is just a drop in the ocean.
This still doesn't stop some people from thinking the new credit cards are intelligent and fast, but are they rather insecure. Some wise guys offer wearing aluminum RFID-blocking sleeves to protect your contact-free credit card. What you can do if the credit card company dispatches you a contact-free credit card, is send it back and demand a regular credit card - your card company should fulfill the request. Otherwise, you can accept the card and use a signal-blocking sleeve.
