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What “bypassing 3DS” actually means
3DS is an authentication framework for online card payments. It helps an issuer assess whether the person initiating a card-not-present transaction is likely authorized to use the card. A fraudulent payment can still succeed when a criminal steals or relays the cardholder’s credentials, persuades the cardholder to approve a purchase, exploits a merchant’s payment path, or uses a transaction that does not receive a 3DS challenge.
That is different from a universal technical break in the protocol. A successful authentication also does not prove that a merchant is honest, a device is uncompromised, or a customer understood what they approved.
What the 2021 warning described
SecurityWeek reported on March 4, 2021, that Gemini Advisory had observed dark-web discussions about ways to get around 3DS. The reported methods included phishing, impersonating banks, malware that could target verification codes, and taking advantage of merchants that did not require authentication for some lower-value purchases. The report also described attackers looking for alternate payment routes, including PayPal. These were observations reported in 2021, not evidence that every tactic remains equally common or effective today. SecurityWeek’s report
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The underlying lesson remains useful: attackers often target the surrounding process rather than defeat the authentication protocol itself.
How 3DS works
During an online card payment, the merchant’s payment setup can send transaction and device information through the payment ecosystem to the card issuer. The issuer evaluates that context and determines whether more evidence is needed. The main participants include the cardholder, merchant, merchant’s acquirer, issuer, merchant-side 3DS Server, network Directory Server, and issuer-side Access Control Server. The three domains traditionally refer to the issuer, merchant/acquirer, and interoperability domain.
Frictionless flow
In a frictionless flow, the issuer assesses the available transaction and device information without asking the shopper to complete a visible challenge. This can make checkout easier, but the decision depends on the quality of the signals and the issuer’s risk controls.
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Challenge flow
If the issuer wants additional evidence, it can challenge the cardholder. Depending on the issuer and implementation, that might mean entering a one-time passcode, approving a prompt in a banking app, or using another method. A challenge only helps if the authentication channel is trustworthy and the cardholder understands what the approval authorizes. EMVCo’s overview of EMV 3-D Secure
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The specific method depends on the issuer, merchant, device, and payment flow. These categories explain the risks without implying that every 3DS transaction is vulnerable in the same way.
| Approach | What is targeted | What it can look like |
|---|---|---|
| Phishing | Cardholder credentials and codes | A fake checkout or bank page collects payment details and a verification code while the victim thinks they are completing a legitimate security check. |
| Impersonation and OTP relay | The cardholder and timing of a live authentication | A caller or message claims to be from the bank and asks the victim to provide a code or approve a purchase. The attacker may relay information into an active payment attempt. |
| Malware or device compromise | The phone or its authentication prompts | Depending on permissions and security controls, malicious software may target notifications, messages, or the presentation of an approval request. |
| Account takeover | A trusted shopper, email, phone, or device account | An attacker gains access before checkout and uses a compromised account or trusted context to make a payment. |
| Exemptions or fallback paths | Merchant, issuer, or payment rules | A payment may proceed without a challenge because of an applicable exemption, an unsupported flow, or another risk decision. Rules and thresholds vary; there is no universal low-value cutoff. |
| Wallets and adjacent payment routes | Card provisioning or a different payment flow | A criminal looks for a route with a different authentication process rather than trying to defeat 3DS directly. The 2021 PayPal example should not be treated as a universal current bypass. |
Visa’s Fall 2024 threat report also described phishing, social engineering, and OTP-relay schemes as ways to circumvent step-up authentication. Visa’s Fall 2024 threat report
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Why newer EMV 3DS helps, but is not a guarantee
“3D Secure” covers different generations and deployments. Older 3DS 1.0 implementations could rely more heavily on reusable passwords, provide less transaction and device context, and create more disruptive redirect experiences. That does not mean every 3DS 1 transaction was exploitable.
EMV 3DS supports richer transaction and device information, risk-based frictionless decisions, and more flexible ways to authenticate. EMVCo materials discuss app-based and out-of-band authentication, WebAuthn/FIDO, Secure Payment Confirmation, decoupled authentication, and other features. Those options can improve the system, but actual protection depends on issuer controls, merchant integration, signal quality, device security, and the payment flow in use.
As of August 18, 2026, EMVCo’s public 3DS page lists bulletins for versions 2.2.0 through 2.3.1.1 and a v2.4.0.0-1.0 draft published for comment on June 3, 2026. That draft should not be mistaken for a version universally deployed in production. EMVCo’s 3-D Secure page
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Why a genuine approval can still be a bad transaction
Authentication and authorization are not the same question. A person may genuinely approve a payment because they were deceived by a fake invoice, investment pitch, romance scam, refund story, or fraudulent merchant. A victim may also approve a transaction after an account takeover or under pressure from someone impersonating the bank.
3DS can help establish that a cardholder or device completed an authentication step. It cannot guarantee that the seller is legitimate, that goods will arrive, or that the customer understood the transaction. A successful challenge is not proof that no fraud occurred.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.When a failed 3DS flow is a technical problem
Not every stalled or incomplete authentication indicates criminal activity. EMVCo’s February 2026 guidance describes a practical issue in mobile browser-based out-of-band authentication: a shopper may move from a merchant’s browser to a banking app on the same phone, then encounter a timeout or a failure to return completion information to the merchant. Merchants and issuers need to handle app switching, return paths, delays, and fallback clearly. EMVCo’s guidance on browser-based out-of-band authentication
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Such failures can create checkout friction or confusion, but they are not by themselves evidence that an attacker defeated 3DS.
What cardholders should do
- Do not approve a payment you did not initiate. Treat a one-time code or bank-app approval as potentially authorizing a live transaction, not as a harmless identity check.
- End unsolicited “fraud department” calls. Contact the bank using the number on your card, its official app, or a trusted statement or website. Do not call a number supplied by the caller or an unexpected text.
- Read each approval screen. Check the merchant, amount, currency, card details, and whether the prompt concerns a purchase, wallet setup, or account change.
- Do not enter codes through links in unexpected messages. Open the bank’s official app or enter its address yourself rather than following an unsolicited text, email, advertisement, or social-media link.
- Secure the accounts around your card. Use a unique banking password, multifactor authentication where available, updated devices, transaction alerts, and carrier SIM-swap protections. Prefer app-based or hardware-backed authentication if your bank offers it.
- Contact your bank quickly if you approved a scam payment. Explain that you were induced to approve it through deception or impersonation; that context can matter when the bank investigates.
What merchants and payment teams should do
3DS works best as one part of a layered fraud program. Merchants should assess the full checkout and account lifecycle, not just whether authentication succeeded. Useful controls include device and behavioral signals, velocity limits, account-age and login-risk checks, bot and card-testing defenses, tokenization, order review, and monitoring after purchase. Visa’s 2026 merchant report describes merchants using multiple approaches, while also noting challenges in integrating data and tools. Visa’s 2026 Global eCommerce Payments & Fraud Report
Use risk-based escalation
Requiring the same challenge for every payment can add friction, cause false declines, and still fail to stop customers from approving scams. Merchants should tune risk policies within applicable regulatory, issuer, and network rules rather than assuming more prompts always mean less fraud.
Monitor outcomes, not just authentication rates
Track frictionless approvals, challenge rates and completions, timeouts, fraud and chargebacks after successful authentication, and suspicious patterns by issuer, country, device, browser, and channel. Repeated low-value attempts and unusual wallet provisioning deserve attention alongside the final payment result.
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Test same-device and cross-device app switching, deep links, return-to-merchant behavior, delayed push notifications, retries, and fallback paths. Protect payment settings and checkout code with least-privilege access, strong administrator authentication, API-key rotation, webhook-signature verification, change approval, and monitoring for injected checkout scripts. A compromised merchant account or integration can undermine payment controls without any protocol-level break.
Bottom line
3DS remains a useful control against some online card fraud, but it is not a guarantee. The most important distinction is whether criminals broke an authentication mechanism or manipulated the people and systems around it. For consumers, never share or approve a code you did not initiate; for payment providers, combine authentication with sound account, device, merchant, and post-transaction controls.
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