Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Victims Lose $500K to ATM Skimmers

In an earlier MySecurityIQ post, we talked about the risks of using public ATM machines or other devices that read cards. A recent incident at a New York bank highlights the importance of being aware when you use public ATM machines.

Thieves in Staten Island installed devices on ATMs at several branches of Sovereign Bank that allowed them to harvest account access information. The data were used to steal a total of more than US $500,000 from the accounts of 250 victims. The group used skimmers to gather data from ATM cards and cameras to discover customer's PINs. The information was then used to manufacture phone ATM cards.

See the Related Tip: Watch out for ATM Onlookers