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:

  • NHS Highland staff ‘poor practice’ sparks fears of heightened risk of a major cyber attack

    December 1, 2025

    NHS Highland is at heightened risk of falling prey to a major cyber attack in part due to “poor practice” by some staff members. The warning, contained in a report to the board assessing risk levels faced in a range of areas against what is deemed an acceptable level of risk, comes as the busy ...

  • FTC cracks down on education tech company after massive student data breach

    December 1, 2025

    The Federal Trade Commission took action against Illuminate Education on December 1, 2025, after the Wisconsin-based company suffered a massive data breach that exposed personal information of more than 10 million students. In late December 2021, a hacker used login credentials from a former employee who had left the company three and a half years ...

  • OpenAI Data Breach Exposes User Data

    December 1, 2025

    A few days ago, on November 26th, right before Thanksgiving, OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, confirmed a recent security breach incident that started towards the beginning of November, which impacted its users, specifically those connected through OpenAI’s APIs. What caused the data breach? “On November 9, 2025, Mixpanel became aware of an attacker that gained unauthorized ...

  • South Korea cyber crisis deepens as Coupang data leak exposes national vulnerabilities

    December 1, 2025

    An investigation is under way into the cause of the breach. The leak raised concerns about phishing attempts targeting customers. Telecom, payments and crypto firms also reported recent breaches. A major data breach at South Korea’s biggest e-retailer has intensified concerns about the country’s digital preparedness, with the latest incident now seen as part of a ...

  • Thousands of Airbus planes grounded after faulty software detected

    November 29, 2025

    Airlines around the world have been forced to ground thousands of Airbus planes following the discovery of a software problem which may have contributed to a sudden drop in the altitude of a plane last month, injuring 15 people. Around 6,000 A320 planes are thought to be affected, delaying and cancelling flights over the weekend. Airbus ...

  • Tomiris wreaks Havoc: New tools and techniques of the APT group

    November 28, 2025

    While tracking the activities of the Tomiris threat actor, Kaspersky researchers identified new malicious operations that began in early 2025. These attacks targeted foreign ministries, intergovernmental organizations, and government entities, demonstrating a focus on high-value political and diplomatic infrastructure. In several cases, Kaspersky traced the threat actor’s actions from initial infection to the deployment of post-exploitation ...