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Crypto-Currency Payments Using POSWhile there are many articles expounding on the security of using blockchain technologies for various reasons, it seems very impractical to use it as part of a POS solution. Blockchain can have many moving parts that need to function correctly in order to make things run smoothly. The main use of this technology has been the development of crypto-currencies such as BitCoin. But, are customers willing to use their crypto-currency accounts to pay for their meals, or event services? Difficult Integration While blockchain technology is quickly developing into a methodology that helps to secure monetary transactions. POS Solutions will have a difficult time integrating it into the firmware that they use to power their devices. Being able to integrate into the larger payment and online infrastructure that houses the crypto-currencies can be difficult to secure, not to mention to achieve PCI compliance as well. Currency Volatility The market on the crypto-currency market has been very volatile recently and currency stability is something that businesses will want to have in place when they receive payments from a consumer. If the crypto-currency is worth less today than when the payment was accepted. Who will pay the difference? Individuals that invest in crypto-currencies know that the market is volatile and they are in it for the long haul as they can be rewarded for their patience, or they can get soaked with a loss. But that is the nature of the market, and they accept that as part of the risk. Lack of Adoption Crypto-currency is more of an enigma for most people. Not very many people are into the market for them and they are not widely adopted as a way to pay for everyday items. Uses for BitCoin have been for illicit transactions on the dark web. This has also lead to the introduction of crypto-currency as already having a stigma attached to it already. In order for the use of crypto-currency to take off and be useful as another way to pay for a service or manufactured goods, it needs to be widely adopted. The current market of these currencies does not hit that mark. Enabling customers to pay with the currency might be a good thing for the service provider, but the return on the investment on a system that can allow that to happen will be very minute. As mentioned before, the volatility of the crypto-currency market make it a losing deal all the way around. Payment Method Integration While the use of crypto-currency remains a buzzword today, other methods have been around longer that are still not being adopted as they were originally touted to do so. In addition, some of the technologies that are currently available like Near-Field-Communications (NFC) have not been fully enabled or utilized by merchants, or POS solution providers. This leads to the question; why another technology? Currently several technologies can overlay with the current payment card processing that solution providers follow. These technologies enable the physical card to be more secure, or help to prevent unauthorized use and disclosure of the primary account number (PAN) and other track data. Any one of these would help to prevent attackers from stealing this data. Nevertheless, they have not caught on with the public as a means to pay for their goods or services. Virtual Card vs. Crypto
There is a growing interest in the use of virtual soft-card technologies that will enable the consumer to pay for a product or service without having to have a physical card. The virtual card will generate a unique credit card number that will be specific for that transaction, and then disabled after that use. This secures the number against any further transactions or usage. Using a virtual card uses current technologies and is processed in a similar fashion as a card-not-present transaction. Crypto-currency is volatile and the amount it is worth may change during the processing of the payment to the merchants bank. In addition, integration into with blockchain technologies over the web in order to record the transaction may not be secured according to PCI requirements leaving the liability of the transaction on the merchant. Crypto-currency integration will require additional infrastructure and processes in order to allow it to be adopted as a means of payment. Virtual cards utilize current infrastructure and processes while also providing no hard payment device that could possibly be compromised. Technology Adoption & Implementation As the payment card industry continues to deal with how to deal with regulatory requirements and making the consumer’s credit card transaction more secure. Technology is advancing that can address these issues. Some of them make a great deal of sense and can be readily implemented. While others are more difficult and will require a great deal of infrastructure improvement in order to adopt the solution. The technology has to help secure the process or help to reduce the threat of a potential compromise. The latter of which has been the driving force for the adoption of current technologies that have been mandated by PCI for the payment card industry. This does not mean that there are new and emerging technologies that shouldn’t be looked at for solving this problem. On the contrary, all options should be on the table as solution providers find new ways to support the merchant, but also helping to secure the customers transactions. Summary It is important to remember that BitCoin has only been around for about ten years now and the technology that has powered it continues to grow and develop. As people get more used to the use of crypto-currencies and we see, electronic wallets become commonplace. The use and development of POS solutions that integrate with crypto-currencies will be limited. That is not to say that there will not be a large number of potential merchants that want to use them in the future. Nevertheless, with current technologies being what they are, it will be difficult to integrate the infrastructure that will be needed to support such a solution. In order to make the adoption of crypto-currency accepting POS solutions viable, the use of the currency needs to be more widespread and accepted. Even with current alternative payment methods being available, the public is not using them in the high numbers that you would want to see with a new technology. Without the customer base that would use a solution, the costs for the adoption of a solution that uses it would be too much, which would offset any sort of security protections that you would get from it.
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