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Apple Pay increases fraud

by on03 March 2015


The price of trusting Jobs' Mob security

Apple's security, which is about as effective as the guards in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, is suddenly finding itself in trouble when dealing with people's finances.

The Tame Apple Press is rushing to claim that Apple's partners, the Banks, are lax and allow stolen credit cards to be added to Apple's service. However Jobs' Mob should have factored in such a wizard scheme when it designed Apple Pay – only it didn't. The damage so far has apparently risen into the millions of dollars.

The Guardian insists that the Apple Pay service has not been compromised. When a card is added to a user's Passbook, banks are presented with two different paths: a “green path,” which banks will accept immediately, and a “yellow path,” which is a slightly more lengthy process.

When a card is either scanned or manually entered into Passbook, Apple provides banks with information about the device being used, the device's location and data about the card's iTunes transaction history. This allows banks to make a more informed decision before authorizing a credit card to be used with Apple's service.

However it seem that if the yellow path is required, a bank might ask for the last four digits of your social security number before making a decision. This is the sort of information that the thieves might already have. The Guardian thundered that rather than blaming Apple for enabling thieves we should really be blaming the banks for not asking people using Apple pay tougher questions.

But get this. It has been revealed that as part an agreement banks signed with Apple, the banks will be held liable for any fraud that occurs through the Cupertino company's platform. Which dumb banker signed an agreement which gave Jobs Mob a get out of jail free card what ever cock up it makes?

The Guardian said that Apple had gone to great lengths to ensure customers are protected when using its service. When a payment is made using Apple Pay, a unique Device Account Number is assigned, encrypted and securely stored in a dedicated chip found within the iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus. Credit or debit card numbers are never shared or revealed, which means the service is even more secure than handing your card over to a merchant.

And yet Apple did not think that crooks would try and put stolen credit card numbers into its glorious system? All it had to do was do a simple cross check against stolen credit card details when the person signs on. True, banks could do it to, but then they are not pretending to supply a super-secure payments system that can be trusted.

 

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