A new survey conducted by London & Partners has determined that nearly three quarters of those polled in the capital city believe digital transactions will replace traditional notes and coins by 2036. “[Both] MasterCard and Visa have reported big rises in the number of contactless card payments, fueled by the use of smartphone payment apps,” reports Mark Blunden of the Evening Standard. “Contactless cards are used for about one in every 10 payments in the capital and Visa predicts that by 2020 about half of all transactions by Londoners will be on mobile. [In addition], MasterCard said contactless spending in the UK had more than tripled in the past year.”
Security
Contactless cards go mainstream in the UK
A new report from the UK Cards Association confirms a significant increase in the use of contactless cards. To be sure, £7.75bn was spent using contactless cards in 2015 – representing a massive jump from £2.32bn in 2014. According to the report, the increase in contactless card popularity can be attributed to a number of factors, including the growth of contactless transport ticketing and an increase in the payment limit to £30.
Securing connected vehicles with Rambus CryptoManager
Anna Steffora Mutschler of Semiconductor Engineering recently observed that self-driving cars have prompted the semiconductor industry to consider a number of complex legal and regulatory issues. “[Self-driving vehicles] open up a whole new field for legal interpretation, case law, and regulation,” she explained. “While most liability cases in the past never crossed below the system vendor/supplier level, [this] could change with autonomous vehicles. [In terms of security], self-driving cars pose a huge concern given the amount of silicon and software and the size and mass of vehicles.”
Tyne and Wear Metro see major passenger increase
Ridership on the UK-based Tyne and Wear Metro has hit a six-year high, with the Department for Transport confirming an extra two million journeys on the Tyne Wear Metro for 2015/16. According to Katie Dickinson of the Chronicle Live, the above-mentioned increase represents a 5.7% jump from the previous year, with the number of passengers exceeding approximately 40 million. In addition, the average Metro carriage was occupied by 62 people in 2015-16, up from 58 the year before.
EE Times talks Rambus and automotive security
Junko Yoshida of the EE Times reports that Rambus is diving into the field of cyber-security for OTA vehicle updates, which she describes as a “red-hot” issue for the current automotive market. “Rambus, a semiconductor and IP licensing company, has partnered with Movimento, a leader in automotive reflash services with innovations in OTA software,” Yoshida writes. “Combining Movimento’s OTA technology with Rambus’ own CryptoManager platform, the two companies have developed a system that offers one-time, single-use keys unique to each vehicle, ensuring validity before installation.”
Rambus and Movimento secure OTA updates for connected vehicles
Rambus and Movimento have teamed up to deliver secure and personalized OTA updates for connected vehicles. As Dr. Simon Blake-Wilson, VP of Products and Marketing at Rambus Cryptography Research points out, numerous OTA solutions designed to deliver functional updates and security patches use the very same software encryption key for multiple vehicles. Essentially, this increases the vulnerability vector of an update.
