Skip to main content

Losing contact (with reality)

According to a number of press report, the Abu Dhabi police are warning local residents that money may be stolen from their bank balances through “electronic magnetisation” and "exploitation of contactless payment technology”. I’m pretty sure that I would be concerned about electronic magnetisation too (if I knew what it was) so I will take this warning to wary to heart the next time I visit. The magnitude of the problem must be such that there is general panic amongst the contactless crazy residents of the… oh, wait. It turns out that Colonel Amran Ahmed Al Mazrouei, Abu Dhabi’s director of criminal investigations, has said that "although such thefts were possible, none has so far been recorded in the emirate".

To the best of my knowledge, none have so far been recorded anywhere else either. When I went to look for evidence of criminal enterprise, I came across yet another alarming statement. According to The Paypers, fraudsters are now using ‘contactless skimming’ machines to read credit card information "right out of your pocket” and then use a merchant account (not sure what they mean by this) to make contactless payments. The article goes on to note that “in a 2013 study published by the University of Surrey, a team managed to ‘successfully receive contactless transmission from distances of 18 to 31 inches’ using a skimming device".

Wow.

That sounds amazing. I’m astonished that banks could be irresponsible to issue contactless card at all if they are so prone to fraud and they must withdraw them… oh, wait. It turns out that of you read to the end of this paper, you will see… "This work was funded by EPSRC and Consult Hyperion".

Ah.

Indeed it was. And it was a brilliant piece of work which included some innovative engineering. You’ll particularly like the bit about using a shopping trolley as an eavesdropping device. But if you read our Tomorrow’s Transactions blog about this in detail, you will find that “Just as when we did the original risk analysis on contactless in 2007, the conclusion is that contactless bank cards are fit for purpose”. Sorry to disappoint, but the sky isn’t falling in, no matter what the papers (or the Paypers) say!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

new survey results from USA Technologies (USAT) suggest. The payments technology company, which enables electronic payments for self-service machines, compared consumer spending activity at 35 of its vending machines in urban areas with a high concentration of iPhone users between week one and week four of the installation of new digital signage promoting Apple Pay. Consumers made more contactless purchases: The vending machine providers saw an average contactless transaction revenue increase of 89%, implying that consumers are making more mobile payments. This was likely driven by the clear advertisement of Apple Pay. Total transactions increased: Consumers made more purchases overall. This was probably driven by an uptick in mobile payments, given the major increase in contactless transaction revenue. And the vending machines may have attracted many first-time users who were drawn in by the digital advertising of Apple Pay. Boosting awareness is key to unlocking pent-up demand amon...
Post a Comment
Read more

David | LinkedIn

Alex Todd rather kindly called this a “most lucid explanation of digital identity management” I would highly recommend this presentation to anyone interested in understanding prospective blockchain based identity architectures From David | LinkedIn This is very kind, but as I said in the link, this is thinking out loud and far from a fully-developed solution. We’re working on parts of this for different clients and I can see that there is something there - a genuinely new way of solving some old problems - but it’s early days.
Post a Comment
Read more

We could fix mobile security, you know. We don't, but we could

Earlier in the week I blogged about mobile banking security , and I said that in design terms it is best to assume that the internet is in the hands of your enemies. In case you think I was exaggerating… The thieves also provided “free” wireless connections in public places to secretly mine users’ personal information. From Gone in minutes: Chinese cybertheft gangs mine smartphones for bank card data | South China Morning Post Personally, I always use an SSL VPN when connected by wifi (even at home!) but I doubt that most people would ever go to this trouble or take the time to configure a VPN and such like. Anyway, the point is that the internet isn’t secure. And actually SMS isn’t much better, which is why it shouldn’t really be used for securing anything as important as home banking. The report also described how gangs stole mobile security codes – which banks automatically send to card holders’ registered mobile phones to verify online transactions – by using either a Trojan...
Post a Comment
Read more