RFIDsecur Offers Unusual Method of Protecting Contactless Payment Options

Security in mobile payment systems is instrumental in people’s continued and growing use of same. There’s no denying that mobile payment security has come a long way, but there’s still a general perception of unease in many quarters.

That’s why new tools are constantly emerging to fight data breaches and other hacker-driven incursions, and one of the latest—now going through Kickstarter—is delivering highly-portable protection for payment cards: RFIDsecur.

RFIDsecur is built around a proprietary polymer film which acts to effectively block RFID access when a payment card isn’t actively being used. This isn’t exactly a new concept—the idea of RFID-blocking card sleeves and wallets have been around for some time—but this may be the first time I’ve seen it reduced down to a simple film sleeve.

Given that short-range proximity to other people and mobile devices could actually result in a payment card being hacked—a contactless payment card can be independently read, reports note, at distances of 30 feet or more—it’s entirely possible that someone in a crowd could be illicitly reading payment cards in every wallet around that person, and few if any would even suspect something was up.

Reports suggest that the RFIDsecur film has so far tested well, and the company is eager to get its material approved for use with Hewlett-Packard’s Indigo digital printer.

RFIDsecur has been tested against several potential threats from NFC card skimming to RFID card skimming, and the end result has been commonly positive. Throw in a very lightweight profile that almost exactly matches the size and density of a credit card and the protective measure seems sound.

While we all have to be vigilant when it comes to protecting our payment methods, no matter of vigiliance can help us against attacks that can be staged from 30 feet away in a crowd full of people.

Any kind of protection method has to be not only secure, but also easy to use; that’s why biometrics are starting to gain ground as a security measure. RFIDsecur represents an easy way to blanket cards in protection while at the same time leaving the cards easy to transport and use, providing that necessary combination of ease of use and powerful security.