E-Skimming a hackers tool this holiday season and how to protect against it.

We used to worry about the skimming devices (hardware) that fraudster install at the gas stations and ATM’s. Where they design to capture your credit card information. Now, hackers use e-skimming to steal your credit card or debit card information while shopping online.

“E-Skimming has become a significant threat to U.S. businesses and the financial sector. E-Skimming is the sophisticated fraud technique in which cyber criminals introduce malicious code on e-commerce payment card processing web pages, capture payment card and personally identifiable information, and send the stolen data to a domain under their control.” (2019, CISA)

Right now they targetted businesses such as retailers, ticket selling sites, travel/booking companies and other online websites. According to FBI, this can expand to other types of business including health-care industry.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has released an article to raise awareness on e-skimming threats. E-skimming occurs when an attacker injects malicious code onto a website to capture credit or debit card data or personally identifiable information (PII).

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) encourages businesses and agencies that take online payments to review the FBI article and consider the following tips to help protect against e-skimming:

• Keep software updated.
• Change default credentials and create strong, unique passwords on all systems.
• Implement multi-factor authentication.
• Do not click on links, and be wary of email attachments in messages.
• Segment and segregate networks and functions.

Users can report suspected attacks to their local FBI office or to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.

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Sources:

• US-Cert.gov – https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/current-activity/2019/10/23/fbi-releases-article-defending-against-e-skimming
• “Hackers use e-skimming to hover near online shopping carts” (2019 MSN.com)