Over the weekend I received new credit cards from Chase. Now, I knew it was time to get new ones, but I took a look at them and I saw that it had the term ‘Blink’ written across the front. I didn’t really understand what this meant until I read a little of the letter attached to the cards.
‘Blink’ is Chase’s version of RFID credit cards. This means you don’t need to swipe your card, just wave it. This is great … except also over the weekend I noted some stories about just how vulnerable these cards were.
Tom Heydt-Benjamin tapped an envelope against a black plastic box connected to his computer. Within moments, the screen showed a garbled string of characters that included this: fu/kevine, along with some numbers.
Heydt-Benjamin then ripped open the envelope. Inside was a credit card, fresh from the issuing bank. The card bore the name of Kevin Fu, a computer science professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, who was standing nearby. The card number and expiration date matched those numbers on the screen. Source: IHT
This is a secondary card and I rarely use it. Despite that, I’m not too happy with the fact that it can be read right through my wallet … and that despite what credit card companies have been telling us, not everything is encrypted. I don’t think I’m going to carry this card with me anytime soon.
Tags: RFID, Credit Cards, Encryption
