Bluetana takes 3 seconds to detect illegal card skimmers, unlike law enforcement agencies who can take up to 30 minutes for inspection.
In 2018, the U.S. Secret Service estimated that every year, approximately $1 billion are stolen by crooks using card skimmers. This makes it over $350,000 every day and highlights the fact that it has become a lucrative way of making quick money.
The biggest hurdle in preventing card skimming attack is that it is virtually impossible for a layman to identify card skimmers at gas pumps and ATM machines.
However, the good news is that computer scientists at the University of California San Diego’s (UCSD) Jacobs School of Engineering have developed an app for smartphones that would let users detect if there is a card skimmer installed on the gas station pump they are about to use.
Dubbed Bluetana by researchers; the app only takes 3 seconds to detect illegal installation, unlike law enforcement agencies who can reportedly take 30 minutes for inspection. Bluetana does it by detecting the Bluetooth signature of card skimmers that are placed in the gas pumps – All this without physically opening the gas pumps.
See: Crooks hack gas station fuel pump to steal 600 gallons of gas
“All criminals have to do is download the data from the comfort of their vehicle,” said Nishant Bhaskar, a Ph.D. stude ..
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