Samsung has clearly denied any impact on its newly launched ‘Samsung Pay’ mobile payment service despite the LoopPay hack. The US-based subsidiary LoopPay was recently acquired by Samsung, which gives it access to the magnetic secure transmission (MST) technology, a core aspect Samsung’s mobile payment app.
Both the companies have admitted that the hack actually occurred back in March, reportedly by a group ‘affiliated Chinese hackers’ who call themselves the Condoso aka Sunshock Group. It was apparently left undetected until August, adds the report. Though Samsung in a separate statement said:
“Samsung Pay was not impacted and at no point was any personal payment information at risk. This was an isolated incident that targeted the LoopPay corporate network, which is a physically separate network. The LoopPay corporate network issue was resolved immediately and had nothing to do with Samsung Pay.”
The Korean manufacturer further added that its Samsung Pay was on an entirely separate network to LoopPay’s, which didn’t allow hackers to access personal user information. As the three servers compromised did not contain any sensitive personal user information including the proprietary technologies developed by the firm.
It is worth pointing out that this report comes just within two weeks since Samsung Pay’s launch in the US on Sept. 28. LoopPay’s integration with Samsung Pay gives the company a slight leverage over other rival services from Apple and Google, as it makes Samsung Pay compatible to work with magnetic stripe readers commonly used across most of the retail stores. Implying that the service can also be used at retail locations that are deprived of a basic NFC wireless network.
Hence, this could make Samsung Pay the most supported service across the US than any other mobile payment service. And unlike Apple who gets a commission for any purchase made via Apple Pay, Samsung won’t be getting any commission or fee for its service, which could possibly boost the popularity of Samsung Pay among third party service providers, retailers, and customers.
The Korean giant had reportedly acquired the US-based mobile payment startup for more than $250 million. However, the service is currently available on a handful of devices which include Galaxy S6, Galaxy S6 Edge, Galaxy Note 5, and Galaxy S6 Edge+. Most of the top US carriers which include AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile are now already on-board with the service, while the Korean giant has also tied up with Visa, MasterCard and Bank of America in the US.
