Is RFID “contactless” card theft possible? Whether you know it or not, if you have a credit card, it is most likely an RFID one – that it is it has Radio Frequency ID, the technology which allows you to Tap and Go: place your card on a reader at the till point to pay for something, rather than inserting it and keying in a PIN.
Wendy Knowler explains...
Not many South African retailers are using the technology right now – it’s mostly still a case of stick the card in and does the PIN thing – but that is changing rapidly.
Tap and Go is the norm in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the EU.
How do you know if your credit card has RFID? It will have what looks like a wifi symbol on it.
There’ve been some rumbles about safety fears because you don’t have to put in a PIN, and some consumer pushback, but the fact is there’s been no spike in card fraud in markets where Tap n Go is the norm.
The “tap” only works for purchases up to R500 (R200 in the case of ABSA) – above that the user must key in their PIN, and as a security measure, the “Tap and Go” cards will still demand a PIN randomly, so criminals can’t use it with confidence and that acts as a deterrent.
Internationally there’s no known case of a chip being successfully cloned and used fraudulently – the chip cryptograms are just too strong.
Which brings us to the video doing the rounds…
Wendy Knowler explains...
Not many South African retailers are using the technology right now – it’s mostly still a case of stick the card in and does the PIN thing – but that is changing rapidly.
Tap and Go is the norm in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the EU.
How do you know if your credit card has RFID? It will have what looks like a wifi symbol on it.
There’ve been some rumbles about safety fears because you don’t have to put in a PIN, and some consumer pushback, but the fact is there’s been no spike in card fraud in markets where Tap n Go is the norm.
The “tap” only works for purchases up to R500 (R200 in the case of ABSA) – above that the user must key in their PIN, and as a security measure, the “Tap and Go” cards will still demand a PIN randomly, so criminals can’t use it with confidence and that acts as a deterrent.
Internationally there’s no known case of a chip being successfully cloned and used fraudulently – the chip cryptograms are just too strong.
Which brings us to the video doing the rounds…