Smart Chip Cards, How Americans Will Pay in the Future

Retailers such as Michaels, Niemen Marcus and Target have revealed they were victims of hacker attacks wherein massive amounts of customer data were stolen.

The target breach alone affected 110 million customers which translate to 1 out of 3 Americans.

Sharing information has become common place through the cards we swipe, the multiple times we give out login and passwords, and provide servicers, merchants and agencies with our personal identity.

Bill Hardekopf, chief executive officer of LowCards.com remarked : “I think we are going to see more of this. This is what our culture is in for.”

Indeed, unless customers chop up their cards en mass, and “filling their pockets with cash, consumers can take steps to minimize their exposure to future data heists.”

Hardekopf warns: “Pay attention to small transactions, not just the big ones. A lot of times thieves put through small amounts first to see if the account is still active.”

Media is calling for the discontinued use of the “now-primitive magnetic-strip technology” and the installment of “smart cards with chips that require PINs”.

Banks such as Bank of America are issuing cards with chips and magnetic strips while most financial institutions are expected to more toward more chips in cards within the year.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner to implore Congress to adopt the CPIN cards with legislative backing in order to ensure the public is protected by the federal government against hackers.

Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the NRF wrote : “Our partners in the financial sector have a critical role to play in making sure their cards are secure,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said in the letter. “For years, banks have continued to issue fraud-prone magnetic stripe cards to U.S. customers, putting sensitive financial information at risk while simultaneously touting the security benefits of next generation ‘Pin and chip’ card technology for customers in Europe and dozens of other markets.”

The NRF correlates the small percentage of CPIN cards being used in the US as problematic in shielding the public from hacker attacks.

The US is behind Canada, Asia and Europe as Americans continue to swipe magnetic strip cards and become unwitting targets who are stealing their PIN and personal information.

According to the Smart Card Alliance (SCA), this is a “device that includes an embedded integrated circuit chip (ICC) that can be either a secure microcontroller or equivalent intelligence with internal memory or a memory chip alone. The card connects to a reader with direct physical contact or with a remote contactless radio frequency interface. With an embedded microcontroller, smart cards have the unique ability to store large amounts of data, carry out their own on-card functions (e.g., encryption and mutual authentication) and interact intelligently with a smart card reader.”

Currently, smart cards are used across the globe:

• Employee badges

• Citizen ID documents

• Electronic passports

• Driver’s licenses

• Online authentication devices

• Citizen health ID cards

• Physician ID cards

• Portable medical records

• Transit payment cards

• Pay telephone payment cards

A short video that describes at a high level what a smart card is and how it can be used within an enterprise to increase its security

Susanne Posel - Chief Editor, Investigative Journalist - See more at: http://www.occupycorporatism.com/smart-chip-cards-americans-will-pay-future/#sthash.RkkuW5SF.dpuf

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