U.S. Gets to Catch Up on Credit Card Security
The Register-Guard notes the next time you swipe your credit card at check-out, consider this: It’s a ritual the rest of the world deems outdated and unsafe. The United States is the only developed country still hanging onto credit and debit cards with those black magnetic stripes, the kind you swipe through retail terminals. The rest of the industrialized world has switched – or is in the process of switching – to “smart” chip-based cards. The problem with that black magnetic stripe on the back of your credit card is that it’s about as secure as writing your account information on a postcard. Everything is in the clear and can be copied. Card fraud and the measures taken to prevent it cost U.S. merchants, banks and consumers billions.
