Are contactless payments safe?

It's hard to find a person who doesn't use Paypass or Paywave payments on a daily basis. The main advantage of contactless payments is convenience. Just hold the card close to the terminal for about a second to confirm the payment.

Until recently, all card transactions had to be confirmed by PIN. Do you remember credit card payments, when you had to confirm your identity with an ID card? Certainly, new payment methods using plastic involve fewer restrictions than before. So are contactless payments safe?

NFC contactless payments

Contactless payments use NFC (Near Field Communication) technology to authorize transactions. Just bring your payment card close to the terminal to wirelessly confirm the payment transaction.

How does a contactless credit card work?

The electronic NFC chip placed in the payment card is nothing more than a properly programmed passive NFC tag. NFC tags do not have battery power and remain idle until they are powered up. How are they powered? By bringing the active NFC module close to the appropriate distance. The active NFC module emits a magnetic field that powers the passive NFC tag, enabling it to transmit data. In the case in question, the active NFC module is a payment terminal, but it can also be a mobile phone, tablet or access reader.

To sum up, we bring the credit or payment card close to the terminal and the loaded card starts transmitting data that confirms the cashless financial transaction.

Danger of copying the proximity card

The key threat associated with the use of any contactless cards (payment, credit, identification, access, electronic tickets, etc.) is the possibility of wireless reading of their content and, consequently, copying them. All you need is equipment that will enable you to wirelessly power the proximity card and read its contents.

The reality of the threat

In theory, the NFC communication range does not exceed 10 cm, in practice, most popular readers require NFC tags to be brought closer to a distance of 0 - 5 cm. The security assumptions of contactless payments are based on the above limitations. Capturing data from a distance of several centimeters is virtually impossible without physical contact with the proximity card.

I keep the card in my wallet, I don't share it with anyone, is my money safe?

Unfortunately not. In 2013, research conducted at the British University of Surrey proved that it is possible to read the contents of contactless payment cards from a distance of up to 80 cm. Which brings us to the conclusion that with the appropriate equipment, you can easily scan the contents of proximity cards of people in your immediate vicinity. Moreover, we can be exposed to this type of attacks every day in shopping malls, supermarkets or public transport...

The operation of scanning and obtaining data from proximity cards itself is impossible to detect by the injured party. We will probably learn that we have been the victim of an attack only when we analyze the list of unplanned expenses on our bank statement.

Contactless card protection

The simplest and at the same time 100% safe way to protect your proximity card against being copied is to block the possibility of wireless data transmission. In practice, we want to use the payment card only when we hold it close to the payment terminal. Therefore, it is worth blocking the possibility of using it, for example when we transfer it in our wallet.

Offered by us

protective case for proximity cards

it completely blocks the possibility of remotely powering the NFC chip and, consequently, copying the contents of the card. Just place your contactless payment or credit card in it to ensure 100% protection. The cases are available in our store in two colors

blue

and

silver

, as usual, at an obscenely low price.