Researchers Found a Way to Bring Expired Credit Cards Back From the Dead

Researchers found a way to bring expired credit cards back from the dead

Being unable to use a credit card to pay for your groceries is annoying enough. It's worse when a "zombie" card claws its way back to life and bites you in the bank account. According to researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, there's a way to abuse an already-expired...Read Entire Article

Zombie Card Attack Can Revive Expired Visa Cards for Contactless Payments

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have demonstrated an attack that revives exp

Researchers find a loophole that lets expired credit cards make unauthorized payments

A team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst has shown that a contactless credit card keeps working past its printed expiration date, even after the cardholder gets a replacement. They named it the Zombie Card attack and presented the findings at USENIX Security 2026. The question behind the loophole “This work is motivated by documented patterns of improper expired card handling. Although issuers instruct cardholders to destroy expired c…

Beware Of Zombie Credit Cards That Work After Expiration

Researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst have uncovered a critical security flaw in contactless payment processing that allows expired credit cards to be reanimated and used for fraudulent purchases. Presented at the USENIX Security 2026 conference, the UMass researchers demonstrated how "zombie credit cards," or cards that