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Is your chip card secure? Much depends on where you bank

krebsonsecurity.com

51–60 of 180 posts

Re: Is your chip card secure? Much depends on where you bank

#51

Guessing Visa can "fix" this problem in the same way they fix the fallback to magstripe: make the vendor pay a fee for noncompliance. https://www.cardfellow.com/blog/emv-fallback-fees-definition...

That’s exactly how it should be: party at fault gets charged.

Re: Is your chip card secure? Much depends on where you bank

#52
post #41
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may have been the case, but pretty much everywhere I go stores have newer EMV capable terminals (e.g Ingenico etc). The only place I really use mag swipe now is a gas station pump (who have no excuse not to switch to contactless EMV). You'd think with COVID-19, there'd be a rush to move to contactless payments.

A lot of people think COVID-19 is indeed the thing that will tip this into the mainstream default: https://www.bankingdive.com/news/will-covid-19-push-contactl...

I hope so. On a related note, I don't know if this is just me, but I literally have not used cash since March (although I keep hearing about a "coin shortage", perhaps this is people just not using coin anymore).

Re: Is your chip card secure? Much depends on where you bank

#53
post #8

So this effectively lets you use chip data to recreate a magnetic stripe, which passes validation when the banks don't check against the right CVV. Yeah, not great. OTOH I worked on an early EMV implementation almost 20 years ago now, and it was obvious even then that mag stripe was a huge security problem. I'm amazed we're still talking about mag stripes and issuing cards with them in 2020. They should have been ret…

First I would love to find a way to find which banks or processors are vulnerable. Second is, is there a way to gain the safety of the chip and pin with online purchases. Currently I obscure my CC info by using PayPal where available and when in the real world I live by Apple pay. If I could disable access to my card by stripe for real world where Apple pay is not usable I would.

Hm, that makes me wonder; is it possible to demagnetize or scramble the data on the mag stripe without harming the chip? I'm not sure how sensitive the chips are to magnetic interference, but if you can pull it off, you can make your own chip-only cards.

Re: Is your chip card secure? Much depends on where you bank

#54

Does anyone have a good detailed article on the crypto behind iCVV/dynamic CVV? This article summarizes how it works, but I haven't found a good detailed article after much googling

I found this from a public FirstData document:

"Codes written on the track with equivalent data stored on the chip to prevent fraud. All chip cards are issued with the card security code on the track data stored on the magnetic stripe and chip card security code stored on the chip. Calculated with the same DES key but with a ‘999’ service code"

https://www.firstdata.com/downloads/marketing-merchant/EMV-A...

Re: Is your chip card secure? Much depends on where you bank

#55
post #40
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding for part of it is that magstip readers were much more common in the US, and businesses (a) didn't want to pay to upgrade all their terminals and (b) don't want to turn away a purchase because a customer doesn't have a chip or the chip isn't working.

That may have been the case, but pretty much everywhere I go stores have newer EMV capable terminals (e.g Ingenico etc). The only place I really use mag swipe now is a gas station pump (who have no excuse not to switch to contactless EMV). You'd think with COVID-19, there'd be a rush to move to contactless payments.

Lots of gas stations do use the chip, but it's the same process of inserting the card.

Re: Is your chip card secure? Much depends on where you bank

#56
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may have been the case, but pretty much everywhere I go stores have newer EMV capable terminals (e.g Ingenico etc). The only place I really use mag swipe now is a gas station pump (who have no excuse not to switch to contactless EMV). You'd think with COVID-19, there'd be a rush to move to contactless payments.

Yeah I actually choose gas stations that support contact less payments. No card contact + one disposable glove is the way to go. Overkill.. Maybe? But it costs me nothing so I'll take the peice of mind.

I'm really not trying to be rude here, but a disposable plastic glove isn't a "cost nothing" scenario. Plastic pollution is bad. Climate change is real. Trash islands are real. Microplastics in the entire food chain is real. I admire your dedication to stay safe, and don't want you to stop feeling safe, but we must all begin to accept what we're doing to the environment.

Re: Is your chip card secure? Much depends on where you bank

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First I would love to find a way to find which banks or processors are vulnerable. Second is, is there a way to gain the safety of the chip and pin with online purchases. Currently I obscure my CC info by using PayPal where available and when in the real world I live by Apple pay. If I could disable access to my card by stripe for real world where Apple pay is not usable I would.

Hm, that makes me wonder; is it possible to demagnetize or scramble the data on the mag stripe without harming the chip? I'm not sure how sensitive the chips are to magnetic interference, but if you can pull it off, you can make your own chip-only cards.

There certainly is. I have done this with a non-payment card. All you need is a magstripe reader/writer. A few tens of passes of writing random data to the magstripe should do the trick.

Not sure how this would impact the usability of your card though, in case you do end up relying on the magstripe.

Re: Is your chip card secure? Much depends on where you bank

#58

I will never understand why magstripe is still used in the US. Even after EMV became “mandatory” there are still magstripe transactions happening and when you are presented sith a chip reader it’s slow and awkward. Why is it such an inferior experience compared to Europe?

What is crazier still, is I wasn't even sent a chip & pin from my bank until just last year. At least they did everything all at once, chip and contactless. But I'm still waiting for Capital One to send me a contactless card (its my preferred card to use internationally where contactless seems to be the standard).

Re: Is your chip card secure? Much depends on where you bank

#59

A Monzo engineer describes nonconformance with specs which might lead some card issuers to be more liberal with what they accept: https://twitter.com/erincandescent/status/128153445694436147...

That was interesting, thanks for sharing it here.

Re: Is your chip card secure? Much depends on where you bank

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European customers aren't liable for fraudulent charges either, I don't really understand your logic here. Everyone pays the price of fraud and it's probably one major reason that explains high interchange fees in the US.

IN Europe the liability shifted to the non complying partner - which helped takeup.

Already the same in the US once EMV was rolled out.
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