Monday, April 27, 2009

ATM Skimming 101

Banking/Finance - ATM / POS
Source: ABC News
Complete item: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Business/story?id=7434509&page=1

Description:
Sean Seibel thought it looked just like any other ATM -- at least at first.

Earlier this month, the 33-year-old Microsoft employee, who lives in New York City, stopped in the closest Chase bank to get some cash to pay his barber. But when he inserted his ATM (automatic teller machine) card in the machine, he noticed a bit of resistance.

The screen said the machine was unable to read his card. So he tried again. But a second time, the machine gave him an error message.

He was about to give up and try another machine, when a thought popped into his head. He had heard about devices that fraudsters attach to the outside of card readers on ATM machines and, though it seemed unlikely, wondered if that was the source of his problem.

"I'm looking at the thing and thinking this can't be - no way," he said. "There are all these stories and myths about it, but I actually found one in the wild."

With a combination of fear and exhilaration, he tried to pull on the green plastic surrounding the card slot and found that it peeled right off.

Three Skimmers Found in One Week

But that same week Nick McGlynn, a 26-year-old photographer, also spotted an ATM skimmer at a different Chase bank in New York City. He had just read about Seibel's experience on a technology blog, when he walked by a set of Chase ATMs that looked peculiar.

"From the window, I could see a mirror centered on one ATM but no mirror on another," he said.


E-Secure-IT
https://www.e-secure-it.com

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Disqus for ePayment News