Source: Indy100
Card cloning is one of the more infuriating annoyances of the 21st century. Gone are the days of losing your wallet and having to worry if some nefarious individual picks it up before you can cancel your card. Now, your plastic can be safely tucked in your pocket while someone runs riot with your bank account.
The technology is startlingly simple, cheap to operate and (most of the time) almost invisible to the untrained eye.
Explained simply; a small card scanning device is added to the card slot of an ATM. This typically resembles the regular card slot to not arouse suspicion. When you slide your card past it, you’re in fact sliding it through a counterfeit reader, which scans the information for storage or transmission via Bluetooth / Wireless to someone nearby.
To gain full access to your account, the scammer will then need your PIN number – they get this by using small strategically placed cameras (that’s why you should always cover your PIN) or a fake keypad, placed over the real keypad just like the card slot scanner. Clever right?
To avoid the attack of the clones, there are some go-to tricks which include covering your PIN and looking out for the warning signs of ATM sabotage. But, if you’ve never seen what a ‘hacked’ ATM looks like, how can you actually tell the difference?
Enter the good folks of reddit: You’ll see these sorts of posts popping up from time-to-time, and they typically feature posters passing on their experiences of dodgy machines to ensure fellow users don’t get scammed.
One of the most recent reddit users, who goes by the moniker of Benderton, spotted a suspect device on the ATM they were using and decided to share his thanks. Read More………...
