Visa and Intel have this week announced that they are working together to bring payments and data security technologies to Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Due to the growing number of payments being made every day on intelligent appliances and wearables, the companies will work together to integrate data security solutions into Intel chipsets to help device manufacturers build more secure payment functionality into these products.
Tackling payments security
Specifically, Intel and Visa claim they will integrate Visa’s encryption technology with Intel Data Protection Technology for Transactions – a software download designed to secure credit and debit card transactions on retailer and bank server networks. The integration with Visa should support further use cases beyond card data, such as computers, mobile and IoT devices.
At the same time, the companies say they hope to make device identification easier and more predictive. Called Intel Online Connect, their solution should work by providing hardware-level data, in the form of a secure device code, during the 3-D Secure authentication process. The benefit of this, Intel and Visa say, is that by establishing the payment device a shopper is using can help merchants ‘distinguish between good and bad transactions.’
The solution will be included in Intel’s 7th generation of processors, and will supposedly work with the existing 3-D Secure protocol and the upcoming 2.0 version, to be released this year.
IoT device security to be ‘hardwired at the ground level’
Visa’s senior vice president of risk and authentication products suggested that the rise of connected devices will expand the ways we shop and pay for things, which will also open up new opportunities for hackers.
“Tackling this security challenge requires a new level of coordination between players in payments, technology and computing,” he said. “Working with Intel, we’re ensuring that the next generation of payment devices have security hardwired at the ground level.”
“7th Gen Intel Core processors will make the online shopping experience hassle-free and provide security that’s built-in to the hardware,” said Rick Echevarria, vice president of software and services group; GM platforms security division at Intel. “Through this collaboration with Visa, Intel continues to innovate in platform security technologies, such as Intel Software Guard Extensions and Intel Online Connect to further protect one of the most preferred online shopping experience on the PC.”
Speaking to Internet of Business, Jonathan Duffy, executive director EMEA at Netclearance, said: “I applaud any attempt to increase security on payment devices. However, there is still concern when payment data is sent over the internet as no encryption is 100 percent infallible.”
“There are now better ways to make purchase on devices that do not involve sending card details or personal data,” he said referencing examples of banks that use mobile wallets connected to bank accounts via payment terminals.
In these cases, according to Duffy, the “only data to complete the transaction, that is transmitted over the air, is the Merchant ID, Payment Terminal ID and the payment amount. The encryption from the mobile wallet identifies the customer’s bank account and enables payments to be completed in the banks own secure system.”
Related: Visa Ready spins out secure IoT pay