There appears to be a sudden rise in instances of ATM skimming. Over the past few days, a number of bank account holders in Bangalore have complained that money was illegally withdrawn from their accounts through ATMs and several have lodged police complaints.
Metlife Insurance employee G Sreekumar, who has a Citibank account, said around 10.28am on February 4, Rs 10,000 was withdrawn from an ATM in RT Nagar. He was at home and the debit card was with him. “I received an alert on my mobile phone. Even as I wondered what was going on, I received a second alert about withdrawal of another Rs 5,000,” Sreekumar said.
Data can be compromised at ATMs using a card skimmer kept in the swipe channel to capture the particulars of debit cards. An invisible camera fitted at the ATM records images of the keypad when you key in your password. In some cases, attackers keep a fake keyboard on top of the actual keyboard of the ATM machine to capture the PIN. Once the fraudster has the account details including the PIN, he makes a duplicate debit card.
