The Card Number A Skimmer Never Gets

A skimmer hidden on a gas pump, a breached checkout system, a server who walks your card to the back: every one of them works because the card in your hand carries the real number that pays for things. Once that number is copied, someone else can spend with it until you notice the charges.

This week's door is the wallet built into your phone. Open the Wallet app, tap +, add your primary credit card, and from then on you pay by holding the phone to the reader and confirming with your face, your fingerprint or your passcode.

🤔 Why the card itself is the weak spot

A plastic card gives the same number to every reader it touches. Anyone who copies it once can use it again, and you usually find out from the statement.

When you add the card, the phone does not keep your real card number for paying. It keeps a stand-in number tied to that one device, and every payment carries a one-time code. The store receives the stand-in and the code, never your actual card number, so there is nothing reusable for a skimmer or a breach to take.

A lost phone does not hand anyone your cards either. The wallet will not pay without your face, fingerprint or passcode, and you can remove the cards from the phone remotely from your account.

Keep the card in your pocket. Let the phone pay.

📕 Where this comes from

This is one of the 263 doors in my book, You're Already a Target. It is on Kindle now.