Category: Mobile Security

PCI Security publishes guidelines for mobile security

The PCI Security Standards Council, a global forum for the development of payment security standards, has published new guidelines to help educate the world’s merchants on the issue of mobile security and how it relates to mobile commerce. Consumers have been growing more interested in mobile payments in recent years, creating significant demand for merchants to adopt mobile commerce systems. As these merchants become more accommodating of consumer demand, security is becoming an increasingly important issue.

Guidelines expected to help merchants make mobile commerce more secure

The new guidelines from PCI Security are meant to help merchants understand the complexities that exist in the world of mobile security. The guidelines may help merchants better protect their customers as they become more accepting of mobile commerce. PCI Security has put strong focus on mobile transactions that make use of payment card data, rather than transactions made directly through a bank account. Connecting a payment card to a mobile device is becoming more common, as consumers consider this a more convenient and secure way to participate in mobile commerce.

Mobile security will help secure growth of mobile commerce market

According to a recent study from Juniper Research, a leading market research firm, mobile transactions are expected to reach $1.3 trillion globally by 2015. This is four times higher than the current level of mobile transactions volume. The firm suggests that this steep increase in mobile commerce is due to businesses becoming more interested in ensuring they can accommodate the needs of mobile consumers. In order for this growth to become a reality, however, businesses will have to adopt better security features to protect consumers.

Evolving threats may make it difficult to ensure security

Mobile security continues to be a major area of concern in the realm of mobile commerce. PCI Security’s new guidelines are expected to help merchants adopt better security standards for their payment systems, but the constantly changing security landscape may make it difficult for businesses to stay up-to-speed with the most current threats that exist in the mobile space.

A team in South Dakota have created invisible printing for security barcodes.

Stanley May, a professor at the University of South Dakota, and a team that includes Jon Kellar, from that institution’s School of Mines and Technology, have combined the use of an invisible ink and a special printing process in order to make invisible QR codes that can be used to identify counterfeit goods.

The barcodes can be seen only when they are viewed under an infrared light.

The research team from the college found a way to add QR codes that cannot be seen by the unassisted eye, to various types of surfaces including paper. This suggests that they could be added to items that are commonly forged, such as official documents, paper currency, and even designer products.

These QR codes could make it much more challenging for counterfeits to be convincingly made.

May and his team have been working over the last few years to create a clear ink solvent, and have now applied nano-particle technology to this accomplishment in order to create the ink that can be seen only when displayed under infrared. The most recent effort involved using this ink in a way that would make it printable. This included the involvement of William Cross, in addition to Kellar.

Through the use of a special aerosol lab printer, the research team was able to apply invisible, basic shapes and letters to various surfaces. The idea to print QR codes came from Jeevan Meruga, a graduate student who had been working with Kellar. He thought up the concept and successfully tested it with the printer before presenting it to Kellar, who said that he wasn’t sure what it was at first. However, he explained that “I quickly figured out what it was and how important this could be.”

The team is now working to perfect the printing of the invisible QR codes so that they can be used in anti-counterfeiting operations. It has been suggested that it could be applied to items such as currency, or identification such as passports or drivers licenses. This would make forgeries much harder to accomplish.