ATM Skimming

Although the chip on an EMV card can’t be cloned (claimed) but still EMV cards will remain vulnerable to skimming so long as they contain magnetic-stripes. Globally, skimming costs the card industry around $2 billion a year, according to Diebold Nixdof blog, which is a huge number, considering our global situation on terrorism which can be fuel to terrorist objectives.

How ATM Skimming Works

Currently there are two types of common skimming attacks used to steal data stored on a magnetic stripe.

Digital skimming

Analogue skimming

In a digital skimming attack, fraudster place a device which looks like a card reader on the ATM and copy the data when the card is passed over the device. The data can be stored in the memory of placed skimmer or send via mobile data where later it’s downloaded to make cards clone.

In an analogue skimming attack, criminals record the sound of the card data signal during the transaction. The data is then retrieved from the recording and used for fraudulent purposes.

Although anti-skimming devices have been successful in falsifying card data and making it more difficult for fraudster to extract card data. These skimming devices use a form of electromagnetic signals to mislead or jam data proved to be a very good defense against digital and analogue skimmers.

But criminals don’t give up that easy over the year there are several types of skimming devices are introduced but they have fail as technology advances and there is no lack of technology available to assist them endeavors. As banks responds to skimming attacks, criminals improve to on effectiveness of their technique and develop new technology to defeat preventive measures, for bank this is ongoing exercises to prevent data and keep customer trust on their services.

Recently new form of skimming technique called stereo skimming undermines anti-skimming solutions. In this type of attack, the criminal uses a skimmer with two heads which allows them to record both the jamming signal and the card data signal. The card data signal is then excluded from the jamming signal and converted it into an analogue or digital format. However, stereo devices are too expensive for low end markets, since they are easily getting away with customer data with low & mid end skimming devices installed on ATMs, we will not see these devices available freely in market.

To stop skimming EMV is a piece of the security puzzle, but don’t expect it to stop all fraud. EMV implementation has decrease card fraud, as it has in the rest of the world but still it will remain a challenge till we see global adoption on EMV.