Card Skimming

The act of illegally capturing the magnetic-stripe or chip data from a payment card, typically using a concealed electronic device, known as a skimmer, installed over or inside a legitimate card reader such as an automated teller machine, a fuel pump or a point-of-sale terminal, often paired with a hidden camera or a fraudulent keypad overlay to also capture the card's personal identification number. The captured card data is generally either sold to other criminals or used to manufacture a cloned physical card or make fraudulent transactions, and skimming is documented by the payment card industry and law enforcement agencies including the United States Secret Service as a significant, persistent source of card-present fraud, prompting the industry-wide rollout of the EMV chip standard, which is substantially more difficult to clone than a magnetic stripe, though a magnetic stripe is frequently retained as a fallback and remains a target.