PRINCETON, N.J.—Hoping the threat from card skimmers will be thwarted in 2017?
Not a chance, says a report in Bank Info Security, which states that skimming attacks are expected to rise this year.
As CUToday.info has extensively reported, ATM and gas pump skimming attacks have risen dramatically in the last year due to the emergence of EMV in the U.S. Crooks are turning to other fraud avenues, and skimming has been a popular choice.
According to Bank Info Security’s Tracy Kitten, the U.S. does not have a good handle on how big skimming losses are. “That's because skimming, whether at gas pumps or ATMs, is hard to track,” she said.
Kitten noted that industry experts and Visa have shared that the number of cards compromised at self-service pumps continues to climb because of skimming attacks, and that they expect the growth of skimming at both gas pumps and ATMs to pick up in the year ahead
Kitten emphasized the reason for the rise in skimming—a reason that has become all too clear for issuers.
“EMV chip rollouts at physical points of sale are making POS attacks less appealing to criminals than attacks at self-service terminals that still accept mag-stripe cards,” she said. “And until ATMs are equipped to accept chip cards for cash withdrawals, these types of schemes will continue to grow.”
The ATM liability shift deadline from Mastercard arrived last year in October, and Visa’s deadline is one year later. For self-serve gas pumps, the liability shift for both Visa and Mastercard is not until October 2020.