ATM skimmers are not losing their popularity among the ATM cyberthief set, but a new twist has emerged. The problem with many of today’s skimming devices is that it makes the ATM look different and it won’t take long before a sharp-eyed employee or customer flags the problem.
The new twist involves razor-thin inserts “made to fit snugly and invisibly inside the throat of the card acceptance slot,” according to a report issued Thursday (Aug. 21) by Krebs On Security. The ultra-thin fraud mechanism “appears to be powered by a simple $3 Energizer Lithium Coin battery,” the story said.
Krebs argues that this is yet another example that points to the U.S. having to move to EMV as quickly as possible. Without it, the U.S. is a fraud magnet. “For reasons of backward compatibility with ATMs that aren’t yet in line with EMV, many EMV-compliant cards issued by European banks also include a plain old magnetic stripe. The weakness here, of course, is that thieves can still steal card data from Europeans using skimmers on European ATMs, but they need not fabricate chip-and-PIN cards to withdraw cash from the stolen accounts,” the story said. “They simply send the card data to co-conspirators in the United States who use it to fabricate new cards and to pull cash out of ATMs here, where the EMV standard is not yet in force.”
