Hacking Store Credit Card Readers

Thieves managed to replace a card reader at a Northern California grocery with a fake machine that was skimming credit and debit card information. Prior to that thieves rigged a machine with a “sniffer” at a nearby Arco gas station, this follows multiple ATM thefts that included well-placed and stealthy video surveillance equipment. This is becoming an all to common form of theft as transaction devices are compromised at gas stations, retail outlets and ATM machines.

Another credit card/debit card hack (although not new since this has been going on since the 80’s) is to use a card with a matching name/ID, perhaps even the real name of the thief, but then replace the magnetic stripe data so that when the card is swiped it will actually reference another account. The cashier, usually a non-attentive, non-customer oriented, twenty-something with an attitude and a chip on their shoulder will glance at the card, look at the thief, maybe ask for ID and complete the transaction without looking at the name on the receipt.

Software, like stripe snoop (here), a trip to Radio Shack to pick up some hardware, a box of old computer parts and a soldering iron and you are on our way to replacing a cards magstripe with another cards data, say the data one skimmed from a fake card reader or obtained off the net.

Honestly if you think that your social security number and at least some of your credit information hasn’t been compromised already you are probably living in a fantasy world, so the real question becomes how can one limit the impact from identity theft. For the most part that is an exercise in monitoring transactions and your credit file.

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• No Title
• Square iPhone Payment System turns your phone into credit card reader
• Programming for the MagTek USB Credit Card Readers
• What do you do after you start Twitter? Invent a credit card reader.