Have you received your new "chip" credit cards?

Dave Taylor writes at Lifezette about the new "chip" credit cards. They are a big improvement in fraud protection for in-store or in-gas-station purchases. Taylor writes,

What you should have received when you got that new “chip and PIN” credit card from your bank was also a 4-digit PIN. It’s the combination of the secret code and the chip that make the transaction much more secure. Also, the data on these chips is actually encrypted, making it a lot more secure than the simplistic mag-stripe, which is easily swiped, read and duplicated.

However, Taylor warns,

Don’t get too complacent, however, because none of these technologies offer much protection against online fraud. When you buy something at Amazon.com, Target.com or BestBuy.com, you’re simply typing in your credit card number, expiration date, and CCV, all of which are easily duplicated.

And that’s a problem. American consumers only account for about 25 percent of all credit-card purchases worldwide, but are the victims of more than 50 percent of the world’s credit-card fraud. Indeed, not a month goes by without reports of another huge data breach from an online merchant.

Not enough to worry about? Turns out you can also have your credit-card data stolen by simply having someone too close. Criminals can use RFID scanners to reap your digital bounty in a practice known as “skimming.” You can protect your cards by wrapping them in foil when not being used, or, if you don’t want to look like a crazy person, by purchasing a special foil-lined wallet.

Read more here: http://www.lifezette.com/popzette/beware-new-credit-cards/