RFID safety wallet - is all of it a waste of money?

Last Christmas these were a highlight as a present and the manufacturer still promote their special safety massively: special cases or wallets with a secured space where your credit cards are kept safe from criminals, who try to read your card information with RFID from a distance and copy their information. Several security professionals and Blogger take a closer more critical look at the new wallet protection. Is it a manufacturer game with the fear of customers where there isn´t actually anything to worry about?

Medial scaremongering

Especially in the United States it is a trend right now. Big advertising agencies advise against the RFID robbery: commercials which show the alleged criminals who locate and read the RFID chip on the Credit cards, in the wallet of their victims, from the other side of the street via Wi-Fi and also steal and copy account information among others. Blogger like Roger A. Grimes have a very critical look at the whole picture. He speaks about a "RFID protection industry" which is unnecessarily rising. In his opinion it only exists to take money out of the people’s pockets for expensive RFID protection wallets, which aren´t necessary.

Different systems and little handling

Roger A. Grimes makes it clear: yes, theoretically RFID credit cards could be read from hackers from a distance, but he also gives reason why such a RFID robbery is equal to winning the lottery. On one hand many cards don´t support the NFC/RFID payment functions by default and aren´t that common that a robbery would be worth generally. On the other hand every operating company has their own communication standards, so that a "RFID thief" has to carry many different wireless systems at the same time to acclimatize individually. A robbery, just by passing by and quickly handling it, is not really working out.

Another aspect is that the trend in mobile payments develops in a totally different direction. Credit- / Debit cards with RFID are currently not really asked for, but instead mobile payment possibilities in connection with smartphones like Apple Pay. RFID or NFC Credit cards work in the most cases only in combination with a pin code which is required to be able to override the encryption system.

For criminals currently it is much more promising to "break in" online shops, and gets as many Credit card data as possible as buying expensive equipment to rob one Credit card data out of their victims’ wallet.

In spite of everything if you still want to protect your Credit card in your wallet: Wrapping it in aluminum foil is enough - you don´t need an expensive RFID protection wallet. What is your opinion? Are these special RFID protection wallets for money making or useful? Share your opinion with us.

Are you interested in the topic RFID? In our application catalogue we summarized a couple of our big projects for you: