RESEARCHERS have warned of a potential vulnerability on iPhones when visa cards are used via Apple Pay.

Experts at the University of Birmingham and the University of Surrey claim the vulnerability only happens on Apple Pay when a Visa card is set up as an Express Travel Card, also known as Express Transit mode, a feature intended for owners to tap in and out of public transport without needing to unlock their phone.

Using simple radio equipment, the team were able to trick the iPhone into thinking it was communicating with a transit gate when it was actually a payment reader used by shops, known among cyber experts as a "man-in-themiddle" attack. This was done by identifying a unique code broadcast by transit gates , which was then used to interfere with the signals between the iPhone and a shop card reader.

"This is a concern with a Visa system but Visa does not believe this kind of fraud is likely to take place in the real world given the multiple layers of security in place," a Visa spokesman said.

(c) 2021 City A.M., source Newspaper