Chip Shield reduces the risk of getting your card number stolen online

We all know about the importance of security and protecting yourself online. Chip Shield is a personal EMV reader for your chip cards that you plug into your computer’s USB port.

This device fits right in the palm of your hand. When you’re ready to do an online transaction, you plug your card into this reader and then plug it into your computer. That way, Chip Shield can generate a secure payment to an online merchant each and every time, which limits the ability of hackers to steal your credit or debit card info.

Read more: 5 ways to stay safe when doing online banking

A closer look at Chip Shield

When’s the last time you had your card info stolen online? With the advent of chip card readers at retail, criminal activity is steadily migrating away from taking place at physical stores to taking place online. Javelin Research estimates that online account takeover fraud could reach $25 billion over the next several years.

Simply by inserting your chip card into the Chip Shield reader, the device will generate a unique one-time use code for the transaction you’re doing — whether it’s buying something or doing some banking. That makes it much harder for criminals to take your info.

‘We’ve all been getting these new chip cards to help protect us in stores, but when we go online we still type in the same 16-digit card numbers and passwords we’ve used for 20 years,’ CEO David Marsyla says. ‘It’s time to start extending chip based security to protect us online and reverse the rapid growth of fraud and identity theft.”

Chip Shield also offers two-factor authentication. Say you’re doing some online banking. The device can validate that the card linked to your account is present before unlocking sensitive areas of the site.

If you’re not familiar with two-factor authentication, it’s a process that requires you to go through an additional step to authenticate who you are when doing a transaction.

The most common type of second-layer authentication is a security token (FSR token or fob that you carry with you). Many banks or brokerage firms will give you one of these devices if you call and ask for it. The security token generates a 6-digit code that changes every 30 seconds. So when you log in, you enter your username and password as usual and then also the latest six digits from your token.

Chip Shield boasts that it’s less expensive for financial institutions to deploy than the tokens and it does not require a custom back-end server to process the request.

Special introductory price

Right now, the Chip Shield is available for pre-order at a special introductory price of $20 and there are no monthly fees.

Of course, there’s no telling where the price goes from $20 after the introductory period ends. But branded versions of this product will be available to banks, and Chip Shield is hinting that means your bank may offer you a discount or rebate on their product in the future.

Chip Shield reminds us of Qkey

Chip Shield offers a new way to approach a problem that a company called Qkey was working on when Clark was at CES 2016.

Qkey is a device that lets you store personal info on it enabling you to safely browse and shop the web on any computer.

So imagine someone creating a browser that sits in your pocket, constantly at the ready to let you securely access any websites. Qkey is what’s called a zero-footprint device. All your info is stored in your key, which uses the technology known as chip and PIN to let you make payments online while eliminating the need for you to remember passwords.

Both Chip Shield and Qkey show that the future for online commerce could be filled with a lot fewer instances of online account takeover fraud!

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