Analysing the security of NFC based payment systems

Electronic payment (e-payment) has been around for decades and has been used all around the world. This type of payment has been evolved following the enhancement in the technology involved. One of the key issues in e-payment is the security of the system. Whether the sensitive data sent over the payment network is safe and secure. The process of this data transferring as well has evolved over the last decades. Currently, in the ubiquitous world, data is more and more transferred through the wireless mode. In the wireless mode itself, the technology has developed to provide faster, cheaper, and more secured data transaction. Near Field communication (NFC) is one of the emerging technologies that used in data transferring and has been applied in several sector, including the e-payment. NFC technology is still considered to be quite new and some of the vulnerabilities are not yet explored. This paper analyses the security side of NFC based payment systems. It discusses the threats that could occur, and the measures taken in order to ensure system security and performance efficiency.