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NFC technology to boost in-store mobile payments

Nov 01, 2013 Dave King

Mobile payment systems are the future of transactions, as the majority of consumers have smartphones. The technology that will make in-store payments possible is near-field communications (NFC), which is expected to boost mobile transactions to a total of $48 billion by 2017, according to Strategy Analytics.

However, businesses will need to address the security concerns with NFC before deploying it in stores. According to CSO, one of the biggest issues is eavesdropping, which is essentially a third party intercepting personal information as it is being transmitted between devices.

Additionally, companies should be worried about data corruption. This occurs when communications between two devices are disrupted, which can lead to the loss of personal information. Man-in-the-middle attacks are also a problem, as hackers can intercept a communication and pose as a store.

Coming up with solutions to these security issues before NFC technology takes off is essential as businesses don't want to risk falling behind the competition because they weren't ready to deploy their mobile payment systems.