Security, Risks and Tips for Credit Cards

Security, Risks and Tips for Credit Cards

In the previous post we have seen the logic behind a 16 digit credit card numbers. Besides learning and understanding the logic behind a 16 digit credit card number and how much vital information those 16 or more digits conveys, it’s also equally important to safeguard that vital information.

Let’s now delve into the security of credit/debit cards, risk associated with credit/debit cards, and yes the use of credit/debit cards i.e., how can you benefit more by using credit/debit cards.

Credit Card Security:

Card Security

The Logic Behind a Credit Card

 INTRODUCTION

A credit card or a debit card has a unique 16 digit number that every one is aware of. But, do you know these numbers are not just random string of numbers rather it reveals a lot more information than you think.

Ever wondered what that 16 digits code actually represents? How that 16 digits identify the bank and the account from which your money needs to be paid to the billing party?

Let's dive into these 16 digits that we just see a string of random numbers and is often wondering that exactly these numbers are.

Advanced Encryption Standards 256

INTRODUCTION

AES256 is symmetric key algorithm i.e., same Key is used for both encryption and decryption process.

AES256 is a 256 bits encryption/decryption algorithm that encrypts a plain text into a human unreadable format using an encryption key (Key 256 bits) and initialization vector (IV 128 bits). The Key size should be 256 bits and block size should be 128 bits. It uses Cipher Block Chaining (CBC) mode which introduces feedback. Before each plain text block is encrypted, it is combined with the cipher text of the previous block by a bitwise exclusive OR operation. This ensures that if the plain text contains many identical blocks, they will each encrypt to different cipher text block. The initialization vector (IV) is combined with the plain text block by a bitwise exclusive OR operation before the block is encrypted. If a single bit of a cipher text block is mangled, the corresponding plain text block will also be mangled. The padding mode used is PKCS7 i.e., Public Key Cryptography Standards 7 which consists of a sequence of bytes, each of which is equal to the total number of padding bytes added.

ENCRYPTION