Deep skimmers, deep hurting

Skimmers are the biggest threat that the credit card industry faces today. No one wants to have their card information stolen by simply using it at an ATM or gas pump but it is happening and certainly as a business owner you do not want it happening at your place of business. Thieves have swarmed here to the U.S. since we are the last remaining major market still using magnetic strip cards rather than the more secure EMV cards. The good news was that many skimmers were easy to spot if you knew what to look for. That has all changed.
The newest threat is known as a deep-insert skimmer. It is either clipped inside the card reader or held in place with a magnet and it is so thin that it is almost completely hidden. They are so small and innocuous that many anti-skimmer solutions simply don’t work with them. A small camera is placed where it can observe the victim’s PIN and that camera also doubles as a receiver for the thieves to more easily retrieve information and it also extends the battery life of the skimmer since it does not need as powerful of a signal to send the information.
Earlier skimmers would stay in use until they were detected, the battery died, or they caused a card jam that would bring attention to them. At that point the thief would have already downloaded the information from the receiver and leave (in some cases the country). It seems that like anything else, the crooks are keeping their technology one step ahead and the good guys are playing catch-up again.
It seems there are two options that exist to combat these skimmers. The first is eternal vigilance. Keep an eye on anything suspicious and monitor security footage to prevent the skimmers from being installed or to at least minimize damage. It certainly will look suspicious on the security camera when the device is being installed and chances are it would be installed at off hours like overnight or on a weekend. The other option is for credit card companies to eliminate the magnetic strip. This, while in the works, will take several more years to happen and is out of your (as a business owner’s) control and even then the crooks will be working hard to stay ahead. So stay vigilant.