EMV or “chip and PIN” cards have a much higher level of security built right into the card, and have been in common use in Europe for over a decade. For some reason (too expensive to implement? Really?) the United States has continued to use the horribly insecure magnetic stripe credit card, which is why exploits like the Target Christmas card breach are even possible.
On October 1st, the United States will FINALLY join Europe other civilized parts of the globe in using the EMV credit card. EMV stands for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, the three companies that backed this credit card specification. EMV cards replace the completely insecure magnetic stripe (where all you card data lives in an unencrypted clear-text state any thief can read) with an embedded microchip. This chip uses encryption, and employs a one-time pad approach to generating card numbers that prevent them from ever being replayed, or used a second time, even if they are decoded.
You will be “waving” or “dipping” the card over the new style card reader, and providing a PIN number. This is known as “chip and PIN.” Retailers will need to contact their point of sale systems providers to get the new equipment. Failure to do so by October 1, 2015 puts your company at risk and you will be held liable for fraudulent charges. If you accept credit cards in your business, you need to get going.
So, just in time for Christmas, maybe we will finally really be safe from credit card fraud.
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About the Author:
I am a cybersecurity and IT instructor, cybersecurity analyst, pen-tester, trainer, and speaker. I am an owner of the WyzCo Group Inc. In addition to consulting on security products and services, I also conduct security audits, compliance audits, vulnerability assessments and penetration tests. I also teach Cybersecurity Awareness Training classes. I work as an information technology and cybersecurity instructor for several training and certification organizations. I have worked in corporate, military, government, and workforce development training environments I am a frequent speaker at professional conferences such as the Minnesota Bloggers Conference, Secure360 Security Conference in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, the (ISC)2 World Congress 2016, and the ISSA International Conference 2017, and many local community organizations, including Chambers of Commerce, SCORE, and several school districts. I have been blogging on cybersecurity since 2006 at http://wyzguyscybersecurity.com