How Easy Is It to Scan a Contactless Payment and Access Card?
Brief
Most of us carry NFC cards every day without even thinking about it. Your office badge. Your apartment key card. Your gym membership card. Your contactless payment card. They’re convenient, fast, and usually just work.
But have you ever wondered what would happen if someone deliberately tried to scan those cards while they were still in your pocket or backpack?
A new Flipper Zero application called NFC Canary aims to answer exactly that question. Instead of interacting with cards itself, it acts as an early warning system that alerts you whenever a nearby NFC reader attempts communication.
I recently tested NFC Canary against several real-world tools used by security researchers and penetration testers, and it raises an interesting question:
How real is the threat of NFC card cloning, and can we actually detect it?
First, What Is NFC?
NFC stands for Near Field Communication.