Once again, the vulnerability of RFID cards is demonstrated while the payment industry insists that it can’t happen.

At a recent hacker conference in Washington, DC one of the speakers, a security researcher, demonstrated the vulnerability of these cards by actually scanning the information of a volunteer’s card, writing it to a bland magnetic strip, and paying herself $15.00

Those of us tat follow this sort of thing have known this for quite some time – it’s no surprise. What concerns me more than the vulnerability is the fact that so many people attending this conference didn’t realize they had RFID cards that needed to be protected. These are security specialists and real hackers. If they don’t know, do you?

Take a look at the logos at the top of this post. Take a look at your credit and debit cards. Look for the words PayWave, PayPass, Zip, Blink or ExpressPay. If you see any of these on any of your cards, you need to protect them now. It can be as simple as a piece of tin foil or a commercially available protector. Just enter “rfid wallet” in your favorite search engine and spring a few bucks.

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A recent article on the FBI news site indicates that ATM card skimming is on the rise. The bad guys are getting very sophisticated and building skimmers that are virtually undetectable unless you are looking for them. The article tells how it’s done and how to detect if the ATM you’re using is fitted with skimming devices.

There has been a significant increase in credit card fraud and other related ID theft related crime. Research shows that it’s preventable. Card holders just need to be careful.

Over at Merchant911 we monitor credit card fraud trends pretty carefully. What we’ve seen in the last month or so is a serious increase in fraud attempts. Careful analysis by the FBI and other Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) related experts show that the timing of this fraud surge is similar to others that occur after a natural disaster such as the recent tsunami in Japan.

As we reported after the Haitian disasterfake relieve sites pop up all over the Internet. They exist solely for the purpose of stealing your hard-earned money. Now we have correlating data for this.

Prevention is simple. Only donate to charitable groups who’s reputation you know. Don’t be fooled by emails sent out that appear to originate from ANY group. Many times, they will look authentic but they most likely are not. They were set up to get your credit card information.

Be careful. It can be an ugly world out there.

I’ve been warning about the RFID cards since I first heard about them. Here is more proof that they’re dangerous. A television reporter goes out on the street and accesses credit and debit card information while the victim’s cards are still in their pockets or purses.

Pay attention please folks. These things are dangerous to your finances but the banks are insisting on putting them out there for all of you. And while they are doing it, they lie about how insecure they really are. And they say that even if thieves could read the cards, they couldn’t do anything with the information. Again, it’s been proven to be a flat out lie.

There are shielding sleeves and wallets available at low prices. I urge you to invest, yes, it’s an investment, in one. I also encourage you to look at your credit card statements on line at least weekly.

Take a look at your cards. If any of them have a similar logo, don’t leave home with it, at least not without a protective sleeve

I suppose that if anyone could give you good advice on protecting yourself from credit card fraud and identity theft, it would be a former credit card scammer.

This article gives some great advice. There is more obviously, but following these few steps can give you some protection.

http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/111759/secrets-of-a-former-credit-card-thief