Credit Card Safety

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) -- Almost every body has one and uses it everyday. We're talking about credit cards. We use them to buy stuff online, over the phone. Some of us even still swipe them in stores. Now, we don't even have to do that, we can just wave our credit cards like a magic wand at check out. It's called RFID, or radio frequency identification.

RFID has been around for years, but until recently was too expensive to mass produce. Now, you can find them nearly everywhere and in everything - from the clothing we wear to our credit cards. Inside some credit cards is a small chip. It can send out a signal with any information on the chip. Thieves used to be able to skim or steal your information right through thin air, but not any longer.

Craig Patterson is an expert on security technology and says, "Early on there was some issues with that because that information could get kited or remotely taken from the card but now they've encrypted all that stuff.”

Craig has been in security consulting for most of his life. He helped introduce RFID. He says it is now much safer to use, but you still should use common sense when taking out your credit card.

He adds, "You still have to watch out and make sure that you still keep your card, because that magnetic strip on the card, if somebody has that, they could use your card."

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