Your ordinary bank robber can now steal hundreds of account numbers from ATMs without so much as lifting a finger. Instead, he skims.

Skimming is the physical use of secondary readers to capture the magnetic tracks on the backs of credit and debit cards. On ATMs, skimmers and secondary keypads are used to capture account numbers and PINs. Often, the ATM transaction goes through, and the customer doesn’t realize that the account has been compromised until later.

Two risks these high-tech criminals face are being caught fitting a faux cover over an ordinary ATM card slot and keypad, then later retrieving the skimmers in order to get the account information.

With the arrest last week of “Chao,” a Turkish ATM skimmer, comes new information on the lifestyles of modern bank robbers, including details on new devices that send captured account data via SMS to their smartphones.

For about $8,000, skimmers can have their own ATM overlay capable of transmitting 1,856 cards via SMS. Bulk pricing is available. And if they don’t want the information sent card by card, they can dial into the device and download the data at their convenience.

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