You’ve probably heard of ATM fishing by now. If you haven’t you should have. It typically involves placing a card reading device that is designed to blend in perfectly with the ATM. Then a camera or other device is placed that records the PIN of the user as they type it. So effectively while the user is entering their credentials into the ATM they are unwittingly entering them into a scammers database.
In a flash of inspiration last night I think I may have found a solution! My first instinct was to put a poster next to or on the ATM that shows what the ATM looks like. There are a few problems with this though. First, the scammer can simply replace the poster, secondly only the security concious will check it. So this is really a non solution.
So what if you placed pictures of critical parts in the software and display them when the user first puts in their card. Show a shot of the card insertion point, the keyboard and and overall picture. Scammers can’t simply place a poster over the screen as the user needs it to use the ATM. You ask the user to confirm all the pictures and if any don’t match you don’t let them enter their PIN, and possibly eat their card.
I’m not sure how this would work in practice. If the recent response to Vista’s UAC is anything to go by people will probably just click accept on anything. This may get the pictures in their face though. So after seeing this many pictures of ATMs they might more easily notice something amiss. Maybe its a bit ambitious, maybe its not quite scammer proof. What do my readers think?
Random Thought: I’m getting an Android phone because it runs on an ARM CPU. That and my Windows phone is on its last LEGS.
It is as you said. People are stupid and will accept anything that causes inconvenience to get to what they want as quickly as possible. The simplest solution is chip cards. The Chip can only be read once it stops so having the chip reader in the machine where the card stops currently but remove the magnetic strip makes it impossible for scammers unless they feel like setting up their own ATM’s
My calculator has an ARM920T (203 MHz clocked down to 75 MHz) http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARM920T.html o.O
Banks just need to be more active with protecting their ATMs I guess. Then again, it’s difficult to keep an eye on ATMs in seedy places. On an unrelated note, the ATMs at CBA Footscray all seem to be different. I figured most of them had skimming devices installed and just went to another suburb instead
Tim.