News : Europol warns of Android tap-and-go thefts.

[BandOfBrothers]

Source: BBC News. 

Link > Europol warns of Android tap-and-go thefts.

Excerpt from the link. 

"Law authorities have warned they believe criminals are using Android phones to trigger fraudulent tap-and-go payments.

The alert comes in Europol's annual Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment report.

Experts had previously said that the rollout of smart wallet systems could raise such a threat.

However, the police are unsure exactly how the attacks are being carried out and how common they are.

"The possibility of compromising NFC [near field communication] transactions was explored by academia years ago, and it appears that fraudsters have finally made progress in the area," the report says.

Prof Woodward added that the threat did not mean people should stop using Android Pay, but rather that all members of the public should remain vigilant against unusual transactions."

[hrym]

I read a resport of this and thought, "hmm, better be careful, but I thought contactless was actually more secure than chip & pin".   Reading it again, I think the problem may be that someone has worked out how to fool a terminal into thinking that a phone has a payment card on it when it doesn't.   It sounds as though the terminal flags up a warning, which means that the retailer is supposed to confiscate the card, but they aren't sure what to do when it's a phone.

I don't think it's an issue for users.