Inducing Authentication Failures to Bypass Credit Card PINs

For credit card transactions using the EMV standard, the integrity of transaction information is protected cryptographically by the credit card. Integrity checks by the payment terminal use RSA signatures and are part of EMV’s offline data authentication mechanism. Online integrity checks by the card issuer use a keyed MAC. One would expect that failures in either mechanism would always result in transaction failure, but this is not the case as offline authentication failures do not always result in declined transactions. Consequently, the integrity of transaction data that is not protected by the keyed MAC (online) cannot be guaranteed.

We show how this missing integrity protection can be exploited to bypass PIN verification for high-value Mastercard transactions. As a proof-of-concept, we have built an Android app that modifies unprotected card-sourced data, including the data relevant for cardholder verification. Using our app, we have tricked real-world terminals into downgrading from PIN verification to either no cardholder verification or (paper) signature verification, for transactions of up to 500 Swiss Francs. Our findings have been disclosed to the vendor with the recommendation to decline any transaction where offline data authentication fails.