atm shimmer

January 27, 2017

ATM ‘Shimmers’ Target Chip-Based Cards

This post was originally published on this siteSeveral readers have called attention to warnings coming out of Canada about a supposedly new form of ATM skimming called “shimming” that targets chip-based credit and debit cards. Shimming attacks are not new (KrebsOnSecurity first wrote about them in August 2015), but they are likely to become more common as a greater number of banks in the United States shift to issuing chip-based cards. Here’s a brief primer on shimming attacks, and why they succeed. Several shimmers recently found inside Canadian ATMs. Source: RCMP. Most skimming devices made to steal credit card data do […]
June 23, 2021

How Cyber Sleuths Cracked an ATM Shimmer Gang

This post was originally published on this siteIn 2015, police departments worldwide started finding ATMs compromised with advanced new “shimming” devices made to steal data from chip card transactions. Authorities in the United States and abroad had seized many of these shimmers, but for years couldn’t decrypt the data on the devices. This is a story of ingenuity and happenstance, and how one former Secret Service agent helped crack a code that revealed the contours of a global organized crime ring. Jeffrey Dant was a special agent at the U.S. Secret Service for 12 years until 2015. After that, Dant […]