Be careful with your bank cards people

New flaws in chip and pin system revealed

Most of us do not think twice about paying for something in a high street shop by keying in our pin. It is easy, fast and in most cases it works.

But scratch a little under the surface and there are persistent reports of people who say they have been the subject of fraud of one kind or another on their credit or debit card.

Now a team of computer scientists at Cambridge University has found a flaw in chip and pin so serious they think it shows that the whole system needs a re-write.

Over the past few years, the Cambridge team has uncovered a series of weaknesses in the system, which has been running since 2004.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/susanwatts/2010/02/new_flaws_in_chip_and_pin_syst.html

That is scary, but doesn't really surprise me.

I saw that report last night. Was quite interesting. I don't know how it all works but the idea that, if you know how, with a 'cloned' card you can confuse the card reader into thinking you've 'verified' by signature after tapping in any four random numbers is a little worrying.

Didn't read the link yet; but I'm not shocked.

Also, you can't fully trust people who work at places, you don't really know them or their character.
..it's one reason why even if I'm at an ATM machine, I cover with my hand first before typing in my pin number, so the cameras from the store, or whereever doesn't reflect it.

to be toatlly honest, i'm a little scepitcal about this flaw,
you have to have your card stolen in the first place (and most people cancel their cards if stolen) then the sheer amount of kit needed to make it work. fair enough some pro scam artists may be able to afford the kit, but then it needs the expertise of a team of computer scientists (from cambridge, our top uni) to make the kit work.
I think this it a bit scare mongerish, I for one, am more concerned with scam artists getting my details and using them to buy stuff online, i think this is a bigger flaw

That's why in NY State the merchant needs a verifible signature for a purchase; otherwise null and void.

You don't necessarily have to have your card stolen. One of my lecturers went to the bank with her card to find her money gone. A quick check with the bank showed that her money had been spent in Arizona while she'd been here in Aberdeen. The explanation was that someone had gotten hold of some of her details and used that to make a "clone" of her card which had then been sold on to whoever used it in Arizona. To back this up, most people using stolen or cloned cards test the waters first by making a small purchase before moving on to the bigger things, which was the case here. Whoever had been stealing her money had first made a $15 purchase at a gas station.

The fact is that identity theft is far easier than most people like to think.

I work in an industry that specialises in protection from this sort of crime. That is just one factor of ID Theft...called Account Takeover. The other aspect is someone applying for credit in other peoples names... access to our credit files is kind of a nessecity in this day and age.

You are right tho inregards to the small purchases first. They normally amount to something like mobile phone top ups..and if it isn't picked up then they basically either make a big purchase or they just clean the account out.

Yeah we covered some of this stuff in a Questioned Documents module last year. Not much because the lecturer didn't know much but we were talking and it's frightening just how easy it is to steal someone's identity and run away with it.

As a precaution I always cover my card when putting it in or out of a bank machine and my hand with my purse when entering my pin, just in case someone's taken the covering of the machine and put a recording device in there. Unfortunately my step-dad seems to believe that it's a conspiracy He'll be careful with wage slips and bank statements but he's lax about everything else security-wise.

1 thing we seem to be seeing an increase in is petrol stations with cameras above the chip and pin reader. I must have spoken to at lease 15 customers over the last 2 days that have had their card cloned in thier local petrol station...

I suppose it might be easier than placing one in a town/city centre I already knew that it happened but then some customers were lucky that the p****s who nicked their details were pulled over by the police. It was either on Road Wars of Police Interceptors. Either way the guys were Polish and some of them went with not understanding English while the others pretended not to have known the equipment and discs were in the back seat Amazingly, some people still refuse to believe that that's how they get you.