Credit cards play a major role in everyone’s life. I can attest to its effectiveness and convenience, though it can’t be denied that it still impose a risk to the user. Now here’s the good news – MasterCard will now employ the cryptographic countermeasure technology to enhance protection against hackers and to avoid being tampered.
This information is taken from “Heartland Data Breach: MasterCard Introduces ‘Tamper-Resistant’ Chip” press release. For the entire release, click this link or directly visit Affinion Security Daily News.
MasterCard’s ‘Smarter’ Card
Beginning now, MasterCard says it will require that vendors of smart cards and other cryptographic products that utilize DPA countermeasures be licensed from Cryptography Research in order to be used on MasterCard’s payment networks. How does DPA work to protect the card information? CRI’s Kit Rodgers explains, “On the technology side, DPA countermeasures are continually present on the payment device chip hardware. They are always ‘on’ when the chip is in use. DPA countermeasures are hardware and software design techniques whose primary goal is to make it difficult for attackers to use DPA to analyze/break a chip.”
MasterCard’s Erica Harvill, director of Communications, says that some of MasterCard’s vendors already are using licensed products with the CRI solution and that the remaining vendors will be making the transition to the CRI solution in the near future.
“We recognize the importance of Cryptography Research’s DPA technology and intellectual property in the area of tamper-resistant semiconductors,” said Christian Delporte, Vice President, Chip Centre of Excellence, MasterCard Worldwide. “The new requirements and rigorous testing provide enhanced assurances to our smart cards and devices.”
Nathaniel Lipman is the current President, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of the Affinion Group. Through Nathaniel Lipman’s leadership, the Affinion Group has grown to be the world’s leader in membership services, insurance providers, loyalty programs, value-added checking programs, and security services.
