Additional NFC Security Concerns
Additional Security Concerns about NFC Technology- Why America is so concerned about getting into a new form of payment technology.
Given the current climate with hackings and identity theft through the roof it is understandable that consumers are a little skittish when it comes to this new technology. Someone will obviously think that since it's not even safe to shop with your credit card information then it must also not be safe to send your credit card information through the air via radio waves to land in a receiver where your payment will be made. In American's minds all a crook would need is a specially designed receiver just like the one the retail location has and whamo! They can spend your money to their heart's desire.
A recent article details these legitimate concerns which you can read in it's entirety here.
Visa, which for those of you don't know is one of the nation's top credit card companies has recently announced it will be getting into the NFC business. Today's climate and many other factors come into play in American's minds that can be read about in the following quote from the above article.
?The PlayStation incident is still fresh in Americans? minds. In April, hackers broke into the PlaySation Network and allegedly stole users? credit card data. The Sony credit card scandal reinforced a lesson that consumers have seen time and again: credit cards are not secure. In early 2009, a major payment network disclosed that a breach had possibly exposed tens of millions of users? data in one of the biggest data leaks in the nation?s history. Heartland Payment systems announced that credit card numbers, expiration dates, and even cardholder names had been compromised. What?s more, Heartland processes transactions between card networks and merchants. Hacking into their data sent data from MasterCard, Visa and American Express clear into space, leaving cardholders vulnerable to credit card fraud.?
Being a gamer myself this was a very scary time for me as I did not know if my credit card information was stolen and even worse if I'd ever get my money back. Luckily, nothing happened but ironically last week at a fast food establishment that shall not be named my credit card information was ?compromised? as the woman at my bank told me over the phone. They closed my account in time to prevent any thievery and whatnot but the moral of the story is that it doesn't matter where your account information is if it can be ?compromised? just as easily wherever you are using it. You just need to take the necessarily precautions and I'm sure as NFC gets more popular there will be several new ways to keep your money safe.
