The Growing Perils of the Cashless Future

CNBC ^ | 23 April 14 | Michael Kling

[SkyPilot]

We're finally on the brink of the cashless society that futurists and other have been forecasting for years. The average consumer owns at least two credit cards and early adopters have begun ditching plastic for virtual wallets. Even businesses that used to rely heavily on cash — think taxis, food trucks or even craft fairs — can now go cashless, thanks to new technology like Square.

Yet, the more we abandon paper bills for plastic, smartphone payments and even cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, the perils of the new, cashless economy are becoming more apparent. Recent security breaches at Target, Neiman Marcus and other retailers illustrate the vulnerability of electronic payments to hacking attacks.

There were 2,164 reported security incidents exposing 822 million records last year, nearly doubling the previous highest year, 2011, according to Risk Based Security, a data security firm. The pace seems to be continuing this year.

Chip-and-pin cards, in use in Europe for years, would remove some of the threat. Computer chips embedded on the cards verify unique personal identification numbers consumers punch into terminals.

The new credit and debit card chips should replace all magnetic card strips by 2015 or 2016 at the very latest.

[Democrat_media]

you must not be a small business owner in some overly regulated industries. i can tell you i feel almost as in that 1984 nightmare already

[discostu]

We’re never going cashless. There’s always going to be people legitimately using cash, which means there will always be cash available for the black market.

[discostu]

All of your wealth and holdings already ARE nothing but megabytes on servers. Been that way since the 70s.

[bert]

all money is just blips on electronic ledgers. the paper stuff is just manifestation of the ledger entries