Payment Security Expert: Analyzing Smart Cards and Contactless Payments with Cryptographic Techniques

Smart cards offer enhanced security and authentication features, making them suitable for contactless payments compared to traditional methods like barcodes or magnetic stripes. Smart cards are employed in scenarios requiring heightened authentication and security, leveraging features such as passwords, cryptographic keys for encryption and decryption, and personal identification through biometric data like fingerprint or iris scans. They also facilitate digital currency transactions, where electronic cash is debited instantly, necessitating real money payment by the cardholder to complete the transaction. The success of smart cards depends on the security, transferability, and ability to maintain data integrity. However, ensuring the security of contactless payment systems presents challenges, including personal threats and various potential attacks that the system must defend against. This article aims to explore the security aspects of contactless payment systems, examining the importance of trust, security measures, and underlying technologies governing transaction processes in contactless payment cards and NFC-enabled mobile wallets. Additionally, it delves into the EMV and ISO standards for contactless payment, highlighting their limitations in bolstering the security and privacy of such transactions. These limitations can be exploited by adversaries to compromise the integrity of transactions, emphasizing the need for robust security measures.