Criminals have plenty of different ways to get their grubby little mitts on your credit card numbers. Sometimes they steal them in bulk from vulnerable servers, like the ones that were breached at Equifax. Other times they snatch them from ATMs, gas pumps and other point-of-sale terminals using something called a skimmer.
A skimmer is a small electronic device that a criminal physically hacks into (or onto) a payment card reader. They’re designed to be installed quickly (often in less than 30 seconds) so that the crook can get in, make the modification, and get out without raising suspicions.
Some skimmers can simply be stuck on top of a card reader. They’re somewhat easy to spot if you’re exercising caution when you use a card. There might be a slight difference in the color of the plastic, for example. It might move — or even pop right off — if you give it a little tug, too.
At the gas pump, however, a skimmer can be nearly impossible to detect. That’s because criminals will often open a pump with a master key and install the skimmer inside the pump. There often aren’t any clues on the outside that would clue you in to the skimmer’s presence… except the Bluetooth signal that criminals use to stealthily retrieve stolen card data.
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