EuropeanAtmSecurityTeam
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Account-stealing bank machine skimmers are now virtually invisible
Bank machine skimmers, which swipe your account as you insert your card, have been getting increasingly harder to spot as the years go by; now, it looks like they're just about undetectable. Researchers at the European ATM Security Team have found skimmers that not only fit neatly into a card slot, but do a good job of hiding any other equipment they need to steal your info. One example (shown below) combined a virtually invisible skimmer with a cleverly hidden spy camera that recorded PIN code entries. Another disguised a system that captured card info through audio, and there are now translucent mini-scanners that even a keen eye might miss.
Security researchers find new wafer-thin ATM card skimmers in use
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.
Criminals constructing ATM skimmers from DAPs
A recent article from Brian Krebs highlights a new trend in ATM skimmers: by using parts from cut-rate audio players and spy cams, criminals are able to construct something called an audio skimmer that records the data from the magnetic strip for later playback. Also included in the device is a miniature spy cam, which captures the user's PIN. The basic methodology behind the device is nothing new (for instance, it could be found in an issue of Phrack dating back to 1992) although the use of DAPs means that the whole thing is a lot more elegant than it was in the days of the portable cassette recorder. According to a recent report by the European ATM Security Team (EAST), devices of this type have been found in five countries, two of them "major ATM deployers" (with 40,000 active ATMs or more). Please guys, don't get any ideas. PR from EAST after the break.
