Prepare for Increased Card Breach Attacks at Gas Pumps in the U.S.





By:  Dorothy Riggs, CFE

The initial EMV chip card compliance date for gas pumps was set for October 1, 2017.  However, on December 1, 2016 Visa and MasterCard decided to extend the compliance date to October 1, 2020, due to difficulties associated with retrofitting fuel pumps to accept EMV chip cards.  Given the prolonged transition date, financial institutions, merchants and card users should brace themselves for elevated card breach attacks launched at fuel pumps along with any other non-EMV-compliant merchants.


As always, but even more so now, consumers should closely examine gas pump card terminals for abnormalities.  Fraudsters are sure to take advantage of the extended chip compliance timeline to steal card data by inserting skimmers into/onto card terminals.

The Financial Services – Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC), the Retail Cyber Intelligence Sharing Center (R-CISC) and the United States Secret Service (USSS) joined together to create Securing Merchant Terminals and Ecommerce Systems, an alert advisory which provides tactics that have proven useful in preventing or mitigating data breaches.


Be sure to read my next blog post if you're interested in more information about skimmers and how to detect them at card terminals.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to tell if your identity has been stolen

Reportedly 143 million consumer's personal identification information (PII) was stolen during the 2017 Equifax data breach.  Equifax is one of the three major consumer credit reporting agencies. Given the type of PII that was accessed, identity theft incidents are predicted to have a significant uptick in the months and even several years to come. Be on the lookout for these red flags.  If these incidents occur your identity may have been stolen. Missing mail, particularly bank and credit card statements You receive statements or outstanding bills for accounts that you don't recognize You receive calls from bill collectors for accounts that you are not familiar with You notice unfamiliar accounts listed on your credit report Upon filing your tax forms, you receive notice from the IRS that your taxes have already been filed You receive notice from your insurance provider regarding services or procedures you didn't receive You receive notice from a business or mer
Read more

Things You Should Know About the Equifax Data Breach

Image
By: Dorothy Riggs, CFE On September 7, 2017 news outlets began reporting that Equifax, one of the three major consumer credit-reporting agencies, had been the target of a major data breach.  Based on Equifax’s investigation, cyber criminals gained unauthorized access to data from mid-May through July 2017. Equifax confirmed that exposed data includes credit card numbers for approximately 209,000 people and personal identifying information (PII) for about 182,000 people involved in credit report disputes.  PII includes sensitive information such as social security numbers, names, birth dates, driver licenses and addresses. According to reports,  143 million people could be affected by this breach . That being the case, you could absolutely be affected. To find out if your data was compromised Equifax has set up a  ‘Check Potential Impact’  site where you are asked to enter your last name and the last 6 digits of your social.  After doing so, you’ll receive a message lett
Read more