Contactless Technology Update

 

The New Year is well and truly underway and we are rapidly approaching our first Trade Only Show in Coventry at the Ricoh Arena on the 23^rd and 24^th of January. It’s exciting to be meeting so many people and have the opportunity to discuss and demonstrate the VoyagerBlue® range with so many people. The demonstration has a much greater impact than any leaflet or e-mail could ever have.

 

Seeing the look on someone’s face when you show them your Smart phone reading a passport and having every detail come up; passport No, date of birth, expiry date and most convincing the digital photo. This is all done with a free app downloadable from the web. Why not try it for yourself if your phone is NFC enabled (I Phones are not)

Here’s an app that will do it...NFC Reader

 

This will also ping bank cards, both debit and credit that have NFC technology but this free app won’t steal anyone’s cash so don’t worry. Makes you think though doesn’t it? If we can do this then what about the likelihood of someone getting hold of an illegal version that will access data and even make a debit. There are App developers around the world and how would you suspect a person stood next to you with a mobile phone, it’s a normal occurrence but they “could be scanning your contactless data” There are over 250 Million contactless bank cards in circulation and its growing everyday as these cards replace old chip and pin only cards. 25Million UK customers have a contactless bank card. So there is a huge potential market for fraudsters.

 

 

 

There is also accidental scanning, only this week we heard of someone reaching across the counter at a popular coffee shop chain for a napkin, he went close by the terminal for the next till with his wallet in hand and accidentally paid for another customers bill on this other till.

 

London transport has installed 8500 terminals on London buses and admits in a BBC interview that accidental scanning may take place. In other words you may wish to pay on Oyster yet get debited from your bank or credit card. If this is easily done then how easy is all this for the less scrupulous?

 

There are a number of articles on the web about protecting your card with TIN FOIL.

However this web page written by a young science enthusiast proves that it does not work efficiently, have a look at this http://www.omniscienceisbliss.org/rfid.html for more detail.

 

Finally and potentially equally an opportunity for fraudsters is the fact that many hotel room keys are being switched to the same technology, illicit scanning and cloning of your room key is a possibility. We will let you know more on this as we explore the Apps available, we have had word of a hotel key App already so as soon as we have researched this we will let you know. Watch out for updates on this issue. We do know that some of the bigger chains in the UK are using this technology

Including one of the premier budget groups if you get my drift! Checkout our Facebook page and our photographic competition

 

See you soon with more updates

 

Gizmo