I recently heard from a police detective who was seeking help identifying some strange devices found on two Romanian men caught maxing out stolen credit cards at local retailers. Further inspection revealed the devices to be semi-flexible data transfer wands that thieves can use to extract stolen ATM card data from “deep-insert skimmers,” wafer-thin fraud devices made to be hidden inside of the card acceptance slot on a cash machine.
The investigator agreed to share the photos if I kept his identity out of this story. He told KrebsOnSecurity that the two men were thought to be part of a crime gang active in the northeast United States, and that the almost 4-inch orange plastic wands allow thieves to download data from a deep insert skimmer. Depending on how the deep-insert skimmer is built, thieves may be able to use the wands to retrieve card data without having to remove the skimmer from the throat of the ATM.
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