Credit card reader writer

Question

If someone has all the information from my credit card name, exp date, card number, cvv and pin but no card, would they still be able to use a reader-writer or would they have to have the card to copy? And is there software that can help do this?

Answer 1

This is usually not sufficient to create a usable physical card. The CVV on the back of the card is the CVV2, and there is a value on the magnetic stripe called the CVV1, which is different. There is also usually a small amount of additional data on the stripe which you haven't mentioned.

If your card is EMV (that is, it has a chip), then that's definitely not sufficient. The chip contains a secret key, shared only with your issuing bank, which computes a cryptographic MAC of the data used in the transaction. While much of the cryptography used in EMV is less than stellar (small RSA keys and SHA-1), the MAC is generally of sufficient strength to make forging EMV transactions functionally impossible. The chip is supposed to be tamper resistant, so cloning the card won't work. All of this applies to modern EMV contactless, too.

Additionally, if your card is EMV, even if someone cloned the magnetic stripe (because they got the physical card), the stripe will contain information that says it has a chip and has to be inserted or tapped. In the United States, you might be able to get the terminal to fall back to magstripe, but in most other places, your bank will just decline the card if the chip isn't read.

Note that the information you've provided is, of course, sufficient to conduct online transactions unless your card is one of the few with an electronic changing CVV display or your bank requires a sign-in or a 2FA method, as is common in Europe. If you suspect that someone unauthorized may have this information, you should call your financial institution right away and report this to them.