Researchers found a way to bring expired credit cards back from the dead
Being unable to use a credit card to pay for your groceries is annoying enough. It's worse when a "zombie" card claws its way back to life and bites you in the bank account. According to researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, there's a way to abuse an already-expired... Read Entire Article
Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered a method to reactivate expired credit cards, allowing them to be used for unauthorized transactions. This vulnerability exists primarily in contactless payments, which can be exploited through two smartphones and some emulation software to bypass security measures.
The flaw lies in Visa's implementation, where the card's expiration date is not cryptographically linked to the Application Expiration Date verified by the POS terminal. As a result, an attacker can manipulate the local expiration date without detection. While Mastercard, American Express, and Discover have shown resistance to this attack, Visa cards remain vulnerable.
To protect themselves, users are advised to properly dispose of expired cards by demagnetizing the magnetic strip, cutting the chip into pieces, and securely disposing of each part in separate trash cans.
Written by urgent.news from TechSpot's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
