Government ID, Smart Cards, Identification and Authentication

Barclays fights phishing with smart bank cards, readers

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

London-based Barclays Bank has turned to a smart card solution from Gemalto to protect its customers who use the bank’s online services. They are provided a one-time access number for each online transaction.

The number is generated by the chip on the customer’s bank card and displayed on the card reader, known as PINsentry. Once a customer enters his permanent PIN, the system generates the password that serves as a digital signature.


According to one bank official, phishing attacks have “decreased dramatically” since the smart card readers were deployed even while such attacks have reached an all-time high for the UK banking industry.

Barclays first started using the $9 readers in 2007 for about 800,000 customers who made payments online. But then other customers began requesting them and now more than two million are in use.

Read more here[end] 

Research and Markets announced the addition of Polasik Research’s contactless payment cards market report, “The Global Contactless Payment Cards Market”, to its offering.

The report describes the evolution contactless payment methods used at point-of-sale, with reference to the solutions offered under the American Express/MasterCard/Visa Agreement. The report also examines the prospects for the development of contactless payments all over the world, including the potential to develop into NFC-based mobile payments.

read more »

German bank, Sparkasse will pilot contactless payments for its bank credit card users, reports Venture Village.

Locations in Hannover, Braunschweig and Wolfsburg will be some of the first for the trial, which begins in April. More than 1.3 million customers will receive the new bank cards complete with contactless functionality.

read more »

Mobile payment solution provider I Love Velvet announced that it has reached the second level of EMV certification (EMV2) which authorizes PIN and integrated chip payments from debit, credit and smart cards around the world.

read more »

The Dutch Ministry of Defense (MoD) has chosen Identive’s SmartFold smart card readers to provide secure remote network access for its employees.

The agency has a lot of restricted and sensitive data that has particular management requirements. The MoD felt that the Identive contact smart card reader would provide the desired level of security, yet be flexible enough to incorporate into the existing network security infrastructure.

read more »

Turkcell, Turkey’s largest mobile operator, has announced the launch of a SIM-based NFC road toll payment application on the Turkcell T11 smart phone.

Developed in collaboration with Bank Asya, the app allows users to migrate their plastic KGS toll payment cards onto their T11 smart phone to pay for fares when crossing bridges and freeway turnpikes.

read more »

A variant of malware called Sykipot is circulating that purportedly enables it to hijack U.S. Defense Department Common Access Cards and Windows smart cards, according to Alien Vault Labs. This variant, which appears to have been put together in March 2011, has been seen in dozens of attack samples from the past year.

read more »