Will the PIN hacks be the end of Google Wallet?

Last week researchers found vulnerabilities in the Google Wallet payment system. The first vulnerability was found by Zvelo, which required root access. Rooting devices has become just short of trivial at this point with the availability of “one-click root” applications for most platforms. The vulnerability was leveraged to display the current PIN number. The very next day a new vulnerability was discovered in how application data is handled in the Wallet app. In this case no root access is needed, as thesmartphonechamp demonstrated , this is simply a flaw in how the application works. Assuming a Google Prepaid card has been set up, a user can navigate to the application management interface, and delete application data for Google Wallet. On return to the app’s interface, the user is then prompted to set up a new PIN. The flaw is that the Google Prepaid card data persists. After establishing a new PIN number, the attacker is free to use the prepaid card as though it was their own.

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