14 DAY TRIAL // German security researcher Thomas Skora has developed an Android app that demonstrates the ease with which the contactless payment card data can be stolen.
The app, Kreditkarten/GeldKarte-Reader has been published on Google Play and GitHub, and according to the expert, it has been created for technical demonstration purposes.
He urges users to test it on their own credit cards to see the dangers posed by the cards’ near field communication (NFC) functionality.
The app is able to read the card number, its issue date, expiration date, and even transaction and account details.
Of course, this is not the first time we hear of such an app. Not long ago experts demonstrated that they could steal basic details from contactless payment cards emitted by most banks by using the NFC feature built into a number of smartphones.