Battery-powered super card to prevent online fraud

BANGALORE, INDIA: No doubt the Internet revolution has helped the mankind in faster connectivity and easy transactions. But at the same time, number of cases involving online fraud, especially with respect to credit cards, is increasing day-by-day.  Fraudsters are actively attempting to steal credit card information all over the world either directly from the customers or from websites that are storing this information. 

Emue Technologies, a privately-held Australian company specializing in authentication solutions designed to mitigate the risk of identity theft, has come up with a unique battery-powered super card that aims to fight such online frauds. The company is specializing in a range of solutions designed to prevent identity theft across the entire fraud threat spectrum. 

The battery-powered super card represents the world’s first and only fully ISO compliant card with embedded microprocessor, 12-button keypad, eight-digit alphanumeric display and long battery life of three years. The card may be deployed as an independent identity protection card or a multi-function credit/debit/ATM card, subject to various conditions of use.

Talking to CIOL, Brendan McKeegan, CEO of Emue Technologies, explained that the battery-powered card displays a one-time number with which each online credit card transaction can be authenticated whenever the user enters the pin number.

“Fraud is a problem globally and fraudsters are becoming more sophisticated in their approaches.  We believe the best way to prevent fraud is to enable the consumer to authenticate themselves using a convenient device that they can carry everywhere,” he says.

“It is common today for viruses to send back a detailed log of everything the victim enters into their keyboard, including automatically pulling out credit card numbers with expiry dates and the three-digit security code. Getting infected by such viruses only takes opening an email attachment or clicking on a malicious web link. Similarly, there is little banks can do if a merchant is hacked and its customers' credit card details are stolen,” explains McKeegan.

“With Emue's technology, even if all of these details are stolen, the hacker is unable to make any online transactions because the security code is different each time. Whenever users want to buy something online, they give the online merchant their credit card and expiry date as normal,” he says. 

“But instead of using a static three-digit security code typically found on the back of the card, the user enters the PIN on the card's keypad and uses the one-time number generated by the card as the security code. This means merchants do not have to modify their systems in any way,” McKeegan further explains.

The card can also be used for authentication to online or telephone banking and transaction signing. “When the card is created for the user, it has a unique seed on it, and that unique seed is stored with the bank along with the pin the user chooses,” he adds.

Has the card been tested for its results? Yes, the card has been extensively tested by Visa Europe, says McKeegan. As regards the potential customers Emue is targeting, he says, “It is primarily up to the banks to identify target customers, however, customers who frequently use their card for online purchasers are obvious targets.”

Emue has redefined the authentication landscape through the introduction of a suite of solutions that allow consumers to identify themselves without the need to provide credentials to an untrusted source. It also has products for the Corporate and Government markets to provide authentication to secure systems.