Technology News

Payment systems equipped with this technology already used for military purposes (recognizing the allies from foes through RFID tags on means of transport) are vulnerable

Rfid contactless technology is spreading worldwide as reference standards for the various types of electronic payment and is designed to reduce the code at checkout.

Almost 20million buyers are now able to buy goods by simply waving their card in front of a player to cash registers, although it is still in a wallet or a purse. Born in Europe, which in itself constitutes a benefit and opportunity for local businesses, has found its first applications in the context of urban public transport: the test drive was carried out on the Paris Métro.

Contactless credit cards (“no-touch”) differ from those with a magnetic stripe for the way in which they interact with the payment terminals.

While the traditional cards must be physically inserted into a Terminal, cards with contactless technology allows the user to carry out a transaction simply towards the reader, “no-touch”.

Where are the logos of circuits can be mentioned, if you are in possession of a contactless card payments under 25 euros simply supporting the Charter to pos (that should read the data within a radius of 10 cm) without the need to sign or enter the PIN, the frequency of 13.56 MHz is used.

In this case, for contactless payment card is a payment instrument with RFID technology (Radio Frequency IDentification – radio frequency identification) technology is already used for several other purposes to military use (recognizing the allies from foes through RFID tags on means of transport).

The payment card is equipped with an RFID chip and an antenna for reception of signal from pos enabled.

Abroad (Japan and United States) this modus operandi in payments is already widely used.

In Italy there are several projects in beta (Postepay Postemobile, Tellcard del Credito Valtellinese, CartaSì with paper FreeTouch). For the testing phase has been chosen the province of Milan, where thousands of POS are already installed and enabled.

The circuits that support these payment cards are Mastercard Paypass, Visa Paywave, American Express Expresspay.

By John D’Agata, a component of the national Theme “consumer protection” of Italy of values and founder of “one-stop” rights, theoretically “safety should be assured by the fact that the card never leaves the owner doesn’t need to spread or insertions. In fact, the payment systems equipped with this technology are quite vulnerable. In fact an attacker equipped with a PDA that is sold on the internet and it costs a few euros, can easily copy data directly from a contactless card holder pockets while the cardholder walk into the street. It was a serious problem in America for a while and come to be also in Italy. The cards can be protected only if wrapped in tinfoil or be kept in wallet lined with a special foil. Nobody really wants this to us by technology that exposes all of the banking sector to increase scams.