Visa Warns of Targeted PoS Attacks on Gas Station Merchants

[Antus67]

Content source

https://www.darkreading.com/attacks-breaches/visa-warns-of-targeted-pos-attacks-on-gas-station-merchants/d/d-id/1336619

At least two North American chains have been hit in sophisticated new campaigns for stealing payment card data.

Point of Sale (PoS) systems belonging to at least two North American gas station merchants and a hospitality chain have been attacked over the last few months by what Visa this week described as sophisticated cyber crime groups looking to harvest payment card data.

Unlike card theft operations where criminals attach hidden skimmers to card readers at gas pumps and other PoS systems, the latest attacks have involved the use of malware on the back end systems that merchants use to process card transactions. As a result, the attacks were a lot more sophisticated, Visa said in an alert.

 

[upnorth]

the US payment card infrastructure has lagged considerably behind other countries that have long ago moved to Chip and PIN technology. The continued use of magnetic stripes has made the US payment environment an attractive target for criminals in recent years.

 

[blackice]

This is very frustrating since all the card issuers give you cards with chips. The vendors/endpoint operators are SLOW to use them. I have 3 cards all with chips, and only in the last year is it more common to use them.