Your understanding is incorrect.
This is just one example [0] there are many ways to skim Chip & Pin (EMV[1]) cards, even if you build a card which cannot be cloned through active or passive monitoring of the ICC component you can still perform at least 1 illicit transaction by proxying to it.
The same holds for NFC skimmers which are now becoming more and more relevant and popular especially with the commercial availability of ultra-low-power and ultra-compact wireless SOC's.
If some one was wondering what are things like ESP8266[2] that give you WiFi connectivity with less than 1mW standby draw while being the size of a quarter are good for; if nothing less they are a pretty damn good platform for real time NFC or ICC skimming.
The same holds for NFC skimmers which are now becoming more and more relevant and popular especially with the commercial availability of ultra-low-power and ultra-compact wireless SOC's.
If some one was wondering what are things like ESP8266[2] that give you WiFi connectivity with less than 1mW standby draw while being the size of a quarter are good for; if nothing less they are a pretty damn good platform for real time NFC or ICC skimming.
[0]http://sec.cs.ucl.ac.uk/users/smurdoch/papers/oakland14chipa...
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMV
[2]https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13678