Beware! Your card is always at risk

Chicago: The ABC7 I-Team has found a mobile technology that hackers use to steal credit and debit numbers from you while you are in public. The cards at risk are enabled with radio technology that allows you to ‘wave and pay.’

Thieves use remote tools to steal information from our credit cards. The I-Team tested a device that can ‘secretly swipe’ while your card while you are standing in line to pay a bill, on an escalator, or in a crowded spot. David Bryan, a security specialist at Chicago’s Trustwave, used a device, kept inside his backpack, to read account numbers and expiry dates of cards safely tucked in people’s wallet.

“They can have everything in just a few seconds,” Bryan said, adding: “The card sends data back to the device. It means that the process can happen without wires. And since it is wireless, it can read through our clothes also.”

The equipment is easily found online but only works on cards with this wireless symbol or cards enabled with ‘Radio Frequency ID’, ‘Near Field Communications’, ‘Blink’ or ‘Paypass’ technology. The device has to get within 6 inches of the card.

“I’m shocked,” said shopper Susan Sherman. I think that’s how some people picked up my debit card number,” said another shopper, Kay Bragg. And we did it again, attaching the equipment to a laptop.

“From a distance, I could still read the cards right through wallets,” Bryan said. Spokespeople representing the Near Field Communications System and MasterCard say that the 3-digit code can’t be read by the device.

However, other fraud experts tell the I-Team that there are other devices which can put card numbers on other ‘dummy’ cards can be used without that 3-digit code, and that some internet transactions may not need it.