CurrentC mobile payment system hacked before it even launches

“Sure. You can trust us with your sensitive personal information and bank account details.”

That is what MCX (Merchants Customer Exchange)–a coalition of retailers that have joined forces to launch a mobile payment system–want you to believe. There are two problems, though. First–MCX membership is a veritable “Who’s Who” of recent massive, high-profile data breaches: Target, Michael’s, KMart, Lowe’s, etc.. Second–the CurrentC mobile payment system has already been hacked before it has even officially launched.

Trust you? I don’t think so. I wrote a blog post about why CurrentC is just done. Put a fork in it:

CurrentC—a mobile payment system developed by a consortium of major retail chains—has made headlines lately for brazenly blocking Apple Pay transactions. The heat CurrentC faced from that poor strategic move is nothing, though, compared to the trouble the embryonic payment system is in now, thanks to news of a data breach.

CurrentC isn’t even officially launched yet. It’s currently pilot testing with a handful of early adopters, and it’s projected to be available to the masses sometime in 2015. Merchants Customer Exchange (MCX)—the organization behind CurrentC—confirmed Wednesday that it was the victim of a hack, though, compromising the email addresses of the early adopters.

No financial information was exposed, and attackers did not intercept transaction data, so it could definitely have been worse. Tim Erlin, director of IT risk and security strategy forTripwire, says, “As long as this incident is constrained to the loss of email addresses, I wouldn’t expect it to be material to their business plans. There are enough big name retailers involved to weather that kind of an incident.”

Read the complete post at PCWorld: CurrentC is DOA before it’s even launched.

Will you trust CurrentC with your financial information? What about Apple Pay or Google Wallet? Let me know what you think about mobile payment systems in the comments below.

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Tony Bradley

Editor-in-Chief at TechSpective

I have a passion for technology and gadgets--with a focus on Microsoft and security--and a desire to help others understand how technology can affect or improve their lives. I also love spending time with my wife, 7 kids, 4 dogs, 7 cats, a pot-bellied pig, and sulcata tortoise, and I like to think I enjoy reading and golf even though I never find time for either. You can contact me directly at tony@xpective.net. For more from me, you can follow me on Threads, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

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