rfid and credit cards

Hi there,

Credit cards use a 15.56MHz (HF) frequency, standard ISO protocol chipset with encryption methods employed to attempt to protect the RFID data transmission session as well as the credit card data itself. The problem with the whole deal centers squarely on two facts:

1) The RFID readers embedded into contactless payment counter top payment solutions contain the decryption algorithms and methods to obtain and transmit the plain text credit card data to the payment terminal via standard RS232 serial communications.

2) Anyone can buy one of these readers (called contactless terminals by the CC industry). Just connect the payment terminal up to your PC or portable laptop and write some simple software to interact with it, and you've got yourself a credit card skimmer. The reader will spit out name, credit card number, and other useful information upon a successful read.

Using one of these readers, one could attempt to enhance the reader's range and get reads at greater distances. I don't consider getting a 3 foot read range to be impossible.

I could get into the details of the actual encryption details, but as you can see it's unnecessary. There are also other posts on this forum that deal with credit cards and security. Check those out and post back if you have any other questions.