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.

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