Hyderabad: The cloning of debit cards is increasing alarmingly in the city with crooks finding new ways to copy data from the cards. The most common way to steal card data is to use extra swiping machines secretly at petrol pumps and supermarkets when customers’ attention gets diverted.
Now the crooks are also tampering ATMs using thin magnetic strips which can copy data from debit cards. Cyber crime officials say the difficult- to-notice temporary skimmers fitted on the card slots of ATMs can read and transfer card details while a customer uses the ATM. Later, the crooks write the data on blank cards, and withdraw money using it after acquiring the PIN.
Central Crime Station DCP Pala Raju said the police has received 40 complaints of debit card cloning in which customers’ data were stolen through this method. “We have got information that some unmanned ATMs in the Begumpet area were misused by the fraudsters,” Mr Raju said. He added that police is trying to get details of the banks and ATMs.
The police now says that the security of bank ATMs have been compromised. Despite alerts from the police, banks are ignoring security issues, senior police officials said.
“Skimmers can be installed on the card slots of ATMs using black duct tapes and some other ways. When customers insert the card into the slot it passes through the skimmer, and it reads and copies the card’s data.
The fraudsters attach these thin magnetic strip readers temporarily, and take it away after stealing the details of customers,” said an official from the Cyber Crime police station.
After stealing the data the fraudsters need only the PIN to make a transaction. Cyber Crime police officials said the crooks use mainly two ways to find out the PIN. “The common way is by standing behind the customers and note the PIN when they enter it. Another advanced technique is to keep a film strip like card reader under the PIN pad. The second method is very rare in the city,” said a cop, who investigated some cases. In some cases the crooks stand behind gullible victims, and offer to help them operate the card, and then note the PIN.
The city police concluded that ATM machines have been tampered with after finding that some of the victims, whose cards have been cloned, never used swiping machines in any shops, but had only ATM transactions.
CCS officials said that customers can avoid risk by examining the ATM card slots before inserting the card. “Though it is unnoticeable at first glance, if you observe it you can find the black extra layer inside the slot. Also, there would be unusual resistance in the slot when you push the card in,” said an official.
Cyber Crime ACP B. Anuradha said that by deploying guards at ATM centres, banks can avoid these risks. Meanwhile, bank officials denied the possibilities of ATMs getting tampered. They said they would verify complaints by reviewing CCTV footages from ATM centers.
