Data thieves turn to Bluetooth technology at the gas pump.
Going old school for a moment to copy an expression used by Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 for Control, who ended most shows by lamenting about the bad guys: “If only they had used their powers for good instead of evil”. And so it goes in the case of the internet of things.
Skimmers have been a source of breached credit and debit cards since before 2010. Primitive skimmers were bulky and unreliable. Later skimmers that were inserted behind the cover of the gas pump or the ATM were not easily detected. Having security tape with a warning “Please report any broken seals to the cashier“ puts the burden on the customer to be wary of, and alert for skimmers, and put a damper on the rapid growth of skimmers at the pump – that is, until the internet of things came into popularity.