PARIS–Europe, as is frequently pointed out, is far ahead of the United States when it comes to EMV cards.
Now, it appears, that goes for hacked EMV cards being used by criminals, as well.
A new report is just now revealing that in 2011 at least one group of European criminals were able to cannibalize stolen EMV cards and then combine those chips with miniature microprocessors that were used to create fake payment cards that were then used to make payments in as much as $680,000 in fraud via 7,000 separate transactions. Countermeasures to that type of fraud have since been put in place, authorities say.
The fraud was revealed in a new research paper, “When Organized Crime Applies Academic Results: A Forensic Analysis of an In-Card Listening Device," published by four researchers from the computer science department at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and the Centre Microélectronique de Provence in France.
Analysts have suggested that while the card vulnerability outlined in the report has now been patched, sophisticated attacks on EMV cards will continue.