Researchers say Chip-based Credit Cards aren’t as Secure as we Thought

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Payment technology company, NCR Corporation (NCR), determined last week that the new chip-based credit card technology isn’t as secure as we thought. The technology behind these chip cards that is supposed to make them more secure than the obsolete magnetic strip cards is that if an individual uses the magnetic strip and the card also has a secure chip, the magnetic strip will tell the payment machine to reject that method of payment and instruct the individual to insert the card into the machine for chip processing. However, NCR discovered that credit card thieves can rewrite the magnetic strip code so that it appears like a chipless card and will allow the thieves to keep counterfeiting the cards. NCR says that the problem is that while retailers are encouraging the use of chip cards, they are upgrading their payment machines but they are not encrypting the transaction. Retailers would need to pay extra for the encryption. So while they are spending money on the new payment machines for chip cards, the transaction is still not all that secure. NCR researches advise retailers to encrypt everything in a transaction to avoid large scale data breaches like Target and Home Depot.

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