Visa Tests New Anti-Fraud Card Device, But What About The Data Leaks?
from the finger-in-the-dike dept
Visa is testing a new type of credit card that's got additional security measures built in as a means of cutting down on "card not present" (CNP) fraud -- the fraudulent sales rung up using stolen credit-card numbers and the security codes that are normally printed on the cards. Visa's new cards have a small screen on the back that displays a six-digit code when the cardholder enters a PIN on the card's keypad, making it sound like Visa has basically built in a tiny version of something akin to the SecurID, a popular two-factor authentication device for corporate computer networks. The devices generate an additional one-time password using an algorithm synced with the system on the other end; the user enters this password when they attempt to log on, or in Visa's case, make a CNP transaction. If the passwords match, the transaction goes ahead. It sounds like a good way to cut down on CNP fraud, but is it just a way to try and gloss over the massive data leaks that see millions of credit-card numbers lost out into the world? It almost seems that if these new anti-fraud cards make it to market, the party line will be "the data leaks don't matter anymore" -- but criminals will still be able to obtain credit-card numbers and make fake cards with the stolen info (for card-present fraud). It might make criminals' lives a little more difficult, but it won't make credit-card fraud impossible. Raising the level of security on credit cards is, without question, a good thing. But unless it involves doing more to stop massive data leaks, it's not enough.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: anti-fraud, credit cards, fraud
Companies: visa
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Good start...
As they say, go for the lay hanging fruit and even if the card data is compromised this could potentially stop it from having any real world affect.
Add to this an enhanced card reader that will automatically download the code at a store when presented in person and you just made duplicating the card incredibly difficult.
Sounds to me like they've taking the system that DirecTV uses for their Access Cards and put it into a credit card. Hope no one is watching/reading this, sounds like time for a patent lawsuit or time for DirecTV to get a really good transaction rate on their merchant account.
Freedom
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http://homepage.ntlworld.com/adelie/stephen/
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If it is harder to get the details to clone a card, get the details to then use said card and then to actually make use of it the amount of card fraud will come down and more will be protected.
I do agree with Stepehn though, It seems useless that measures are in place in many countries, but not in the US. All this does is create a parket to ship details to making them easy to use and thus the new systems impact will be greatly reduced.
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Re:
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Technology
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Re: Technology
Making midget porn look proportional?
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How durable is the card? How easy is it to kill the pin pad or LCD window? How does it hold up to the abuse cards take in the real world? Heat? Cold? Bending? Magnetic or electronic interference?
Who eats the cost of replacing these things?
I'm not aware of any SecurID type system being hacked, but there has never been this much MONEY available for hacking them. How long will it be until this too is compromised (most likely by some website/online processor being hacked)?
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Data leaks are a different issue
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Data leaks are a different issue
Sure enough, if you have to share "secret" information with large numbers of parties, there will be many copies - and some will inevitably leak.
The only way to *really* fix the problem is to get rid of the whole nonsense of a secret-but-public number. That's what this kind of approach does: There's nothing to steal, because there's no value in the number given to any particular third party beyond a single transaction.
It's not so much that crime gets harder, as that its nature changes. There are still plenty of attacks - they are just different, and require an attacker to be present in different places and have different skills and tools. (In fact, the attacks now are *so* trivial that any change is for the better!)
A couple of things are worth understanding, however:
- Credit cards are not the only "secret but public" pieces of information. All sorts of banking information is like that. There's enough information on any check you write to enable an attacker to empty your account! There haven't been as many attacks against this infrastructure because it's a bit harder to get away with crimes - you have to move money to an account at another bank, which is usually easy to trace unless you have more sophisticated connections - and it's been so much easier to attack credit cards. Make credit cards more secure, and attacks on banking information may rise rapidly.
- There's plenty of other data that really *is* private (medical records, financial records, etc.) that can still leak, so we need general solutions here.
- This fix is not without its convenience costs. Ever order something on-line in your pajamas? You'll have to go find your credit card now - you won't be able to type in your credit card number from memory. It remains to be seen whether people will accept these costs.
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Re: Data leaks are a different issue
-- Jerry
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Payment Security
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