Zombie Card: An expired Visa credit card can be used for purchases


Did you know there is still a good reason to physically destroy your expired credit card? Scientific research found that the expiration date used by payment terminals on some contactless cards was not effectively protected against tampering.

University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers Raja Hasnain Anwar, Gerard DeCunha, and Muhammad Taqi Raza tested contactless cards across Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express, using multiple terminals and merchants, and cards from five major US banks.

They found that a payment terminal could be tricked into seeing a future expiry date. Basically, they were able to modify the expiration date sent to the terminal to a future date. This allowed them to revive expired Visa contactless credit cards for real in-store purchases. Hence the name “Zombie Card.”

Read more…
Source:  MalwareBytes Labs


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • Threat Actors Spoofing FIFA Websites in Advance of the 2026 World Cup

    May 27, 2026

    The FBI is issuing this Public Service Announcement (PSA) to warn the public that cyber threat actors are conducting spoofing attacks against the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) website in advance of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. A spoofed website is designed to pose as a legitimate website, with branding, product listings, etc., and malicious ...

  • UK Visa Portal exposed thousands of applicants’ passports and selfies — then called the lawyers on us

    May 27, 2026

    A website called UK Visa Portal publicly exposed thousands of passports and selfie photos of applicants who paid the site to obtain a U.K. immigration visa. An anonymous person notified TechCrunch about the security lapse, saying that the website was exposing at least 100,000 documents from people who uploaded their passports and selfies to the website ...

  • Ghost CMS flaw hijacked to target hundreds of websites with ClickFix attacks

    May 26, 2026

    A critical-severity vulnerability that reportedly was patched three months ago is being exploited in a massive ClickFix campaign, researchers have claimed. In mid-February 2026, a critical SQL injection vulnerability was found in Ghost CMS, a popular open-source Content Management System (CMS) currently used by more than 57,000 websites, including the likes of 404 Media, The Canadian ...

  • Industrial robots targeted by malware, which could open them up to hacking

    May 25, 2026

    A critical command injection vulnerability has been discovered in Universal Robots PolyScope 5, the operating system whucg powers the company’s collaborative robots. The flaw, tracked as CVE-2026-8153, carries a CVSS score of 9.8 and affects all software versions prior to PolyScope 5.25.1. This vulnerability could lead to complete compromise of the robot controller, affecting the confidentiality, integrity, and availability ...

  • Another major Linux security flaw revealed — nine-year old issue could spell disaster for users

    May 23, 2026

    Security researchers Qualys discovered a major flaw in the Linux operating system (OS) that could let any ordinary user, or malicious actor, gain full admin access on vulnerable endpoints. This bug lingered in Linux systems since 2016, and affects the default installations of several major distributions, including Red Hat, SUSE, Debian, Fedora, AlmaLinux, CloudLinux, and others. Read more… Source:  TechRadar News Sign up ...

  • Cloud Atlas activity in the second half of 2025 and early 2026: new tools and a new payload

    May 22, 2026

    In 2025, Kaspersky observed pervasive SSH tunnel activity, which has remained active into 2026, affecting many government organizations and commercial companies in Russia and Belarus. Behind some of this activity is Cloud Atlas, a group which was known  to Kaspersky researchers since 2014. During the investigation, the researches identified new tools used by this group, as ...