For about as long as magnetic stripe cards have been around, so has skimming.  For whatever reason, skimming has become much more used by thieves in recent years.  Most headlines focus on the big hackings and breaches but skimming is still a huge problem and anyone with the right equipment can snag your information almost effortlessly.  Some places that are targets for skimming are ATMs and unattended gas pumps.

The PCI council addressed this ongoing problem in August of 2009.  Their statements state that merchants need to grasp that protecting their customers against card skimmers is just as imperative as keeping card databases and POS terminals safe from hackers.  One of their examples at keeping equipment safe from someone installing a skimmer was to place a surveillance camera to watch the POS terminal, but at an angle where it couldn't record the PIN number entered.  Even though this seems like a great idea to the council at the PCI DSS, merchants aren't usually willing to spend the money on monitoring systems.  Most merchants don't even feel an impact by credit card skimming at their business, but arguments can be made that they lose future sales and the trust of their customers.

For more information about the PCI council's skimming prevention, please use the following link:

https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/skimming_prevention_IS.pdf