Skimmers on ATM Machines
Lately, I’ve really enjoyed having The Consumerist in my RSS reader. There’s always a lot of great stories about companies screwing over people, people getting in contact with the right people to straighten things out, and nice tips and tricks for when it happens to you. It’s one of my favorite non-security-related blogs in my reader, however today it had a post that’s definitely of-interest for my security blog followers:
Take a look at that thing! Very cool. Has it’s own memory and a usb port to dump the data it records. It would have been very tempting to keep it and reverse engineer it if I had found it :-). This sort of thing is definitely something the bank and police (not to mention bank customers!) need to know about, though.
That’s pretty slick! I’ve never actually seen a skimmer myself, but I always try to give the front panel (everything, in case something is watching my PIN entry) a good once- or twice-over, and maybe even glance at the back on free-standing units.
If I did ever find one, I’d have a little mental war. Do I reach for it (captured on the ATM camera) like I was retrieving it as *my* skimmer? Or do I leave it there and call the police to come out? Do I keep it?
I’d love to keep it, but I’d also be worried that I’d eventually get a knock on my door because they saw me pluck it off moments before using my own ATM card!
I would be more inclined to report it but keep it if I were somewhere entirely not normal for me, and I didn’t use my ATM card at all. For instance on the road somewhere using some dumpy ATM in a town I’ve never been in and likely never will be in again…