Consumers have received warnings for years about the threat of card skimmers that can steal their debit and credit card data, and many have learned to check for the devices before inserting their cards into ATMs or swiping at self-serve gas station pumps.
Now the pandemic has inspired many shoppers to take their purchasing online, away from the threat of those physical devices. This has not stopped fraudsters who have followed the money and adapted their skimming techniques for an eCommerce environment. Hackers now are deploying eSkimming schemes in which they insert malicious scripts into merchant websites, enabling the fraudsters to steal card data out of online checkouts — often leaving both the eTailers and consumers none the wiser.