Yet more evidence that scammers are always way out in front of the businesses they defraud… not to mention the enforcement agencies who are supposed to stop them. You’ve heard of credit-card skimmers, right – unofficial extras glued on to an ATM to store card details from the magnetic stripes as the machine is used? [image by Wrote]

Well, now it seems the things can simply text the captured data to the user, saving them the risk of getting busted when they turn up to collect it. As the Hack-A-Day blog (where the story was spotted) remarks:

ATM skimmer manufacturers have so far been really successful because of their commitment to security, from the paint they use to cover their skimmers to their exclusive clientèle. The manufacturer of this particular model claims that none of their clients who’ve used this new ATM skimmer has been arrested, and they only accept business from “recommended” clients. We think it’s interesting and ironic how these criminals have adapted their security procedures to deal with institutions we wish were more secure.

Quite. [image by Mathias Klang]