Apr 11
Be careful
Dec 03
Brian Krebs has found a fascinating example of a card skimmer – essentially a machine that steals your credit card number – that masquerades as a real POS terminal. The skimmer fits over the ubiquitous Verifone POS reader and even reads key-presses. It is virtually indistinguishable from the actual POS card reader and can be slipped on and off without the retailer’s knowledge – or, more chillingly, with the retailer’s consent.
Should you be worried? Well sure. Your credit cards are approximately as safe in the wild as your cash. If you give your card to someone, the rules of decorum allow you to assume they won’t cheat you. That’s not always the case, and it doesn’t help that the thieves are getting so wily when it comes to card skimming.
Heck, thieves don’t even need skimmers. Sometimes they can simply install new software onto cash registers, giving them backdoor access to all transactions. Here’s hoping none of us get hit this heavy shopping season.
Jul 24
ATM card skimming is hardly a new activity, and neither are card skimmers that continue to get smaller and more discreet. As Brian Krebs of the Krebs on Security blog reports, though, a new development out of Europe has now crossed a key, and potentially troublesome threshold. The European ATM Security Team (otherwise known as EAST) has discovered a new type of wafer-thin card skimmer in use in at least one unnamed European country that’s small enough to fit directly in the ATM’s card slot — that’s as opposed to most current skimmers that can be well-disguised but generally sit on top of the card slot. As you can imagine, that makes it considerably more difficult to spot for even the most attentive ATM users, but Krebs notes that the skimmer still requires a secondary device like a camera or keypad overlay to record a person entering their PIN.
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Security researchers find new wafer-thin ATM card skimmers in use originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jul 2012 21:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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