New warning issued about contactless card security

New warning issued about contactless card security
Tags: Financial Self-Service, Retail Self-Service, Security, Wireless
October 26, 2006

ePaynews: A group of U.S researchers has issued a report warning of a potential security loophole in RFID contactless payment cards.

The researchers, working for the Council for Security and Privacy, carried out tests with 20 RFID-enabled credit cards to see if they could read data being transmitted over the air. They then demonstrated to a New York Times reporter that the cardholder's name and other data, which could include the card number and expiration date, were leaked in plaintext to an unauthenticated card reader.