Dumping Firefox. Going to Safari.

I tend to prefer debit when purchasing things. It hasn’t really been a
security thing for me; it’s been more of a speed issue. But recent
information is compelling me to switch to credit again when swiping at Point
of Sale (POS) systems.

There’s
new research
that shows how easy it is to replace and/or modify POS systems to capture
the info right off your card when you swipe.

[
BBC: “Chip and PIN” Possibly Vulnerable to Fraud
]

So we’ve heard of this type of thing with suspect, standalone ATM machines
and such, but now it’s being done with standard POS systems, which we use
far more often.

Some may say that it’s only a danger in little rinky dink shops and not
major stores like Walmart or Target. But think about it. How hard would it
be for a professional criminal to get someone hired at a big store and then
have them either modify or replace one of their POS systems? Considering the
type of people these companies hire, not hard.

I bet there’s a time-sensitive opening right now in which it could be done
fairly easily. Perhaps not in six months when the big stores will be
watching for it and/or defending against it, but in the meantime I suspect
there is a decent amount of vulnerability.

Anyway, even if there isn’t, I’m still going to be switching to credit for a
while for a very simple reason. You can’t capture the PIN if you don’t enter
it, because it’s not stored on the card. So if you use credit on a
compromised POS system they’ll still get your name and card number, but they
won’t have your PIN.

I’ll take a slight amount of annoyance in order to avoid even a minimal
chance of such a serious impact. Or, to put it another way, the odds of me
getting my info and PIN stolen are pretty low, but the hassle of not using
the PIN at all is so insignificant that I think it’s worth switching to
credit during the pre-remediation phase.:

[
BBC: “Chip and PIN” Possibly Vulnerable to Fraud
]