Friday, May 11, 2012

Let's be safe out there

Crooks are creative.  Take this ATM "add on", for example:


It's called a "skimmer", and crooks put it on top of legitimate ATMs to capture your card number and PIN.  From the outside, it looks like this:


If you look really closely, you'll see a pinhole on the right that has a camera recording you as you enter your PIN.

Brian Krebs has a very interesting post about how this sort of thing happens, and what you can do to protect yourself.

5 comments:

c w swanson said...

Interesting post. I'll show it to the nice teller at my bank the next time she tries to talk me into getting an ATM card.

Stephen said...

I hate to admit this, but other than my military service, I've always been self-employed in a cash business of one kind or another. I've never used an ATM in my life. Never will, now.

Laura said...

i always give the ATM's card reader a good yank before i use it. same thing for gas pumps - give it a yank. if it comes apart, then hey, you've found a skimmer.

Old NFO said...

Laura has it right! :-)

Pakkinpoppa said...

Haven't used the atm card in a while, mostly because of how easy it is to empty a bank account due to convenience.