News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on In Hours, Thieves Took $45 Million in A.T.M. Scheme. Parent comment

Re:In Hours, Thieves Took $45 Million in A.T.M. Scheme by untog on Friday May 10, 2013 @02:11AM (#5684869)
Not quite. Chip and PIN adds an additional layer of security (PIN verification upon payment, verified against a secure chip) that is much, much more difficult to duplicate because the internals aren't known. Magnetic stripes are open to everyone.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:In Hours, Thieves Took $45 Million in A.T.M. Scheme by raverbashing on Friday May 10, 2013 @04:44AM (#5685232)
Actually, the internals are known, it would be security through obscurity otherwise (cough GSM cough)

The mag stripe is as safe as giving everybody your CC number (with CVV code)

Which chip-and-pin two things happen:

- the chip won't work without the pin number being input

- only one transaction is authorized at a time

- the chip is not duplicable (the information needed to duplicate it can't be read from the card)

[ Parent | on HN ]