Stop & Shop Stores Hit By PIN Pad Bandit
Written by Evan SchumanFebruary 19th, 2007
A PIN pad bandit struck a half-dozen stores in the Stop & Shop chain this weekend, where they physically removed the pad, “tamper with it” and replace it into the cradle, said Stop & Shop spokesman Robert Keane.
Within a few days, the chain had large bolts installed into the PIN pads at all of the chain’s 385 locations in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island. “As a result of this tampering, account and PINs associated with some credit and debit cards used in these two checkout lanes in early February were stolen,” said a Stop & Shop statement.
Local police and U.S. Secret Service agents are investigating.
February 28th, 2007 at 10:03 am
More likely, the thief did not hack the TRSM (Tamper Resistant Security Module) in place on most PIN pad devices. Instead, they probably added some additional piece of hardware to copy the PIN as it was entered into the device.