Pro-Grade Point-of-Sale Skimmer
Summary: Trustwave SpiderLabs forensics experts examining Bluetooth-based point-of-sale skimmers found at an undisclosed U.S. retailer in October 2012 described the devices as a leap forward in skimmer technology, with custom circuit boards soldered directly to PIN pads and card readers. The skimmer encrypted stolen card and PIN data both at rest and in transit using a custom AES block cipher, and its maker set the microcontroller's lock bit to prevent the code from being read off the chip.
Why it matters: Trustwave said whether it can break the cipher and determine which card brands were affected could change the fines the breached merchant pays, and the quality of the soldering suggests the boards were custom made and possibly mass-produced rather than planted by an opportunist.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
- Topics
- Data Breaches
- Related
- TSMC employee data breach linked to cloud provider Cyber Risks · Nov 15, 2026Data Breach at La Poste Subsidiary Maileva Affects 22 Million People in France Cyber Risks · Nov 15, 2026City of Osaka warns of data breach impacting 1 million as Japan reels from dozens of cyber incidents Cyber Risks · Nov 13, 2026