Despite the prevalence of credit cards and payment services like Venmo and Apple Pay, when things go wrong, cash is still king. And today, Europe and the UK got a really good reminder of that after a network crash prevented millions of Visa credit and debit card holders from making any transactions.
In the United States, the big banks have been very slow to adopt new credit and debit card technologies, with secure chip cards only being introduced in the past few years. Which is tragic, because Dynamics is introducing a new connected credit card with a GSM chip inside, and an E-Ink display, that’s no thicker than…
China has a debt problem. More specifically, Chinese citizens are suddenly drowning in debt after the country opened the door to personal lending in 2014. Now people are borrowing money so recklessly that at least one woman literally rearranged her face in order to avoid paying back her $3.7 million debt. It almost…
Wikileaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange blatantly lied about publishing only the “last four digits” of credit card numbers from democratic donors during an appearance on the HBO show Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday.
Before you light your wallet on fire, let’s clarify something: the rollout of chip-enabled cards is going to help prevent fraud in the long run. But for merchants that are yet to get their shit together, the move away from magstripe is actually causing problems.
American Express has warned its customers that they may have had their personal information stolen during a data breach—which happened in 2013.
It’s over four months since retailers around the US were supposed to start using EMV technology to accept your card payments. So why is it that so many stores seem to be ignoring the chip?
Credit cards and passports are filled with microchips brimming with your personal information—and give off radio waves to any nearby sleazebag that wants to steal your identity. A new generation of those chips stands to stop hackers in their tracks.
You’re sitting at home minding your own business when you get a call from your credit card’s fraud detection unit asking if you’ve just made a purchase at a department store in your city. It wasn’t you who bought expensive electronics using your credit card – in fact, it’s been in your pocket all afternoon. So how did…
This humble-looking piece of circuitry, little larger than a quarter, can be used to wirelessly fool magnetic stripe readers into thinking you’ve swiped your card, by generating hefty magnetic fields that mimic the data held on it.
You may be under the impression that the new EMV chip system for credit card payments is nice and secure. But the UK’s been using it since 2003 — so crooks have had plenty of time to work out how to hack the system and steal your cash.
Today is the deadline for US retailers to switch over to a payment technology called EMV. That means you’ll have to start verifying your credit card with a chip, as well as a swipe. We talked to payments industry experts about how EMV works, what’s happening today, and what it means for the average shopper.
Do you like your face? Then you’re going to love MasterCard’s new ID Check security system. The experimental feature uses your camera’s front-facing camera and facial recognition technology so that you can pay with your face. MasterCard thinks millenials will love it.
The ARPANET didn’t make its first host-to-host connection until 1969. But long before anyone was online, communications companies were trying to figure out how to make interactive home shopping a reality. This short 1961 film from Bell Systems (now AT&T) showcases the futuristic tech that they were imagining—including…
Technology is a conquerer. The evidence can be seen in mounds of dead pagers, flip phones, and CDs. When companies and startups agree to kill something off, it’s usually not long for this world. But one piece of tech has become an unkillable cockroach—the credit card.
Among other things, Apple's Second Coming of the Mobile Payment Solution was meant to fix our broke-ass credit card security system. Only, according to (unconfirmed) reports, it's doing exactly the opposite.
Contactless credit cards are a hit in the UK. But a British research team has revealed a serious security flaw that allows anyone to charge up to $999,999.99 in foreign currency to a nearby card, even while it's still in a wallet or purse.
Remember Coin, the card that promised to put all your credit cards on one handy chunk of plastic, and then suffered from substantial setbacks that may make it useless by the time it comes out? Well now it has a competitor. This is Plastc, another upcoming supercard with some seriously big promises that will be even…
The United States is almost ready to join the rest of the world in the chip-and-pin credit card future. But in the meantime hackers have been stealing all our numbers left and right. Wired took a deep dive into the software that lets it happen, and the process is both clever and simple.
Home Depot is reeling after it confirmed this week that 56 million credit card users' data was stolen from its payment database. Now, The New York Times says the home improvement store ignored security warnings from its own computer experts for the past six years. Yeesh.
