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  • 2018-11-25 (xsd:date)
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  • Will Pressing 'Cancel' Twice on an ATM Prevent Your PIN from Being Stolen? (en)
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  • If you're looking for security tips or best practices for preventing your information (and money) from being stolen at an ATM, you can turn to organizations such as the American Bankers Association, law enforcement agencies, or the bank that issued your card. On the other hand, you're probably better off avoiding advice from unsourced social media posts. In November 2018, many Facebook and Twitter users encountered a message claiming that pressing the CANCEL button twice before swiping their cards at ATM machines would prevent their PINs from being stolen: This message did not originate with law enforcement, a financial institution, a cybersecurity firm, or any other authoritative source (although some versions referenced a vague banker friend). Nor did this bit of advice specify what form of ATM fraud it would putatively deter. Although it's possible that some particular ATM theft scheme exists which might be thwarted by a user's pressing the machine's CLEAR button twice ahead of a transaction, this advice will not work as a general safety mechanism. The most common methods for capturing account information and PINs via compromised ATMs are: 1) The installation of a false front on an ATM. 2) The installation of a card skimmer (i.e., a device attached to a card reader slot which copies information). 3) The installation of a Lebanese loop (i.e., a small plastic device with a barb that holds a card back in the machine). 4) The installation of an overlay on top of the numeric ATM pad to capture PINs. 5) The installation of hidden cameras to record user keystrokes (including the entry of PINs). None of these schemes is likely to be thwarted by pressing the CLEAR button before a transaction, as none of them relies upon front-loading the encrypted PIN pad with input. We perused the security advice offered by a variety of institutions and found no organization recommending the double cancel input method. Instead, the most common PIN safety tips are the following: When we reached out to the American Bankers Association to verify whether they had heard of this advice, or if they themselves had ever recommended ATM customers to press cancel twice in order to prevent their PINs from being stolen, they told us that this was not something that we have heard of and offered some additional ATM safety recommendations: David Tente, the executive director of the ATM Industry Association, told us that this claim was completely false: Hitting the cancel button twice before using an ATM may not have any downside, but users shouldn't expect this procedure to do much of anything to keep their information safe from thieves and scammers. (en)
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