U.S. is still tiptoeing toward EMV credit cards

Isn’t it wonderful? Now that October is behind us, all our credit card security problems have been solved! But wait — why did I get a call from one of my credit card companies informing me that my account had been compromised? How can that be?

In October, the U.S. went through the “Payment Networks’ Liability Shift,” the first significant milestone toward full rollout of Europay MasterCard Visa (EMV) chip technology here. So what has actually changed?

EMV is chip-based technology that is being deployed on credit and debit cards to replace the long-antiquated magnetic stripe system. It’s already been deployed throughout most of the world, but the U.S. has been slow to implement it. One of the long-term goals of EMV is to enhance the security of credit card transactions. For example, it significantly increases the cost (to attackers) of cloning a credit card account. It is supposed to keep a consumer’s account number more private, so that an adversary can’t easily steal one’s account number and make fraudulent transactions.

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here