A reliable credit-card skimmer detector: a card that detects multiple read heads

A reliable credit-card skimmer detector: a card that detects multiple read heads

Good. "A team from the University of Florida won a 2018 Usenix Security Distinguished Paper Award for Fear the Reaper: Characterization and Fast Detection of Card Skimmers, which presents their work on the "Skim Reaper," a fast, easy-to-use, reliable credit-card skimmer-detector. The team analyzed the NYPD's trove of skimmers and realized that skimmers overwhelmingly work by shimming a second read-head into the swipe slot (the alternative, a "deep tap," requires extensive work on the target machine and has only been found on gas pumps). By designing a credit-card-sized probe, they can detect these second read-heads. It's a breakthrough: the skimmers themselves are virtually invisible and undetectable to physical inspection, but hiding the second read-head is going to be very hard."