Beware of PIN stealers while using ATM

MHA issues advisory asking people to be cautious about skimmers

Hyderabad: Welcome to the new normal, where even a routine task such as withdrawing cash from an ATM has become risky, not because of the Covid-19, but because of crooks prowling around to steal your debit card PIN or debit card itself.

While there have been at least four recent instances where such crooks were caught in the city, there have been several other instances across the country, prompting even the Ministry of Home Affairs to issue an advisory asking people to be cautious.

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“Do NOT enter the PIN in the presence of any other person standing close to you or share the card with anyone. Always ensure that there is no extra device attached near card insertion slot or keypad of ATM while making a transaction,” says a tweet from Cyber Dost, the cybersecurity awareness handle of the MHA.

Here, the Rachakonda Police on July 24 nabbed a person on charges of diverting the attention of elderly customers and stealing their debit cards at ATM centres. Police recovered Rs 1.4 lakh and 15 ATM cards from Rajender, who on the pretext of helping elderly people, collected their PINs and then diverted their attention to replace their cards with duplicate ones. He then used the original ones to steal cash.

On July 9, the Gopalpuram police nabbed a five-member gang from Bihar, from whom 23 cloned ATM cards were seized. Police said they targeted ATM centres near the Secunderabad Railway Station, and posing as customers tricked others, mostly elderly persons, into giving their ATM card numbers and PINs. Using the stolen information, they cloned cards and stole money.

On June 25, two students from Andhra Pradesh’s Prakasam were held for stealing debit cards, including Wi-Fi enabled ones, from ATM centres. They were held with 310 debit cards.

Cyber Dost has also cautioned that of late, Know Your Customer (KYC) frauds too were on the rise. One was misusing the name of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd, with SMSes saying that the customer’s ‘BSNL SIM Document’ had expired, giving a customer care number to call with 24 hours. Another was in the name of the State Bank of India, which has prompted the SBI too to ask the public to report such cybercrimes to the police.

Do NOT enter the PIN in the presence of any other person standing close to you or share the card with anyone. Always ensure that there is no extra device attached near card insertion slot or keypad of ATM machine while making transaction. @RBI @FinMinIndia

— Cyber Dost (@Cyberdost) July 28, 2021

“We advise our customers not to respond to emails/SMS/calls/embedded links asking them to share their personal or banking details like user ID/ Password/ Debit Card number/ PIN/ CVV/ OTP etc,” the SBI tweeted recently, asking people to mail details of such attempts to report.phishing@sbi.co.in.

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