SkimProt – the easy anti-skimming solution


Tuesday, July 08, 2014 by SkimProt

Skimming is the most common offense in transactions and bank cards usage. In practice, it can be carried out quite easily. On the card slot of an ATM, an additional reader can be mounted (skimmer), which can copy the information on the banks cards magnetic stripe. Simultaneously a micro camera or a parallel keyboard will record the PIN number. This is all the information that is required to create a duplicate bank card and use it without the authorization of the real owner. In most cases, such equipment is undetectable by the users and they figure out that they have lost their personal information, only when it is too late.

It is important to note that this type of theft can happen only through stealing of the information from the magnetic stripe. Worldwide, transactions occur through bank cards, which have a magnetic stripe or through bank cards, which have a magnetic stripe and a chip. In comparison to the magnetic stripe, the Chip is extremely secure and there is no recorded case of the EMV chip being hacked. The two technologies coexist, because there is not a 100% coverage of chip reading hardware on a global scale and until those migrate, the two types of information carriers will exist on the bank cards. Until such time arrives, the unsecure magnetic stripe on the bank cards will continue to exist.

For 2013 the estimated losses due to skimming on a global scale exceed $5, 500, 000, 000. The concentration of fraud is dispersed and there is no single country where it is not a problem.

In Europe the average loss per skimmed ATM is around €36,000, while for the US it is around $50,000 based on information from EAST. This is a 20% increase in comparison to the statistics for 2012 for Europe and a 66% increase for the US. On the other hand the ATM Industry Association registered a 50% increase in investments for additional hardware security against skimming, which brings the total amount of equipped hardware to 41% of all machines in Europe. These statistics show a worrying trend and no real solution to the serious and continuous problem skimming.

Regardless of all the investments and innovations in the sphere of anti-skimming devices, the battle against skimming is not going in the rights direction, as shown by the statistics. The problem is that all of those solutions are dependable on the hardware that exists and are not universal. This is why SkimProt is a great way to protect your own bank card and all of the control is with the end user, regardless of bank issuer, card type, country or ATM.

SkimProt is a protective sticker, which is applied over the magnetic stripe of your bank card and guarantees protection against skimming. This occurs by hiding your personal information encoded on the magnetic stripe and the ATM will only use the information that is encoded on the SkimProt sticker. SkimProt instructs the ATM to use the information on the chip and not to use the one on the magnetic stripe. The information that is encoded on the sticker is absolutely non-personalized and if there is a skimming device, it will record that information, rather than your one. Even with the right PIN number, the information from our product is useless for the vigilantes.

SkimProt functions with full transparency, it is absolutely passive and does not alter or change in any way the original information on the bank card. Its effect is instant and it does not require any activation or include any hidden expenses.