Fraudsters’ bugs transmit credit card details to Pakistan: Daily Times

* UK customer details cloned with help of new sophisticated bugs planted in supermarket card readers
* US counter-intelligence official says bugs transmit information via wireless technology to Lahore
* US National Security Agency is tracking case because of its links to Pakistan

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Detectives are investigating a sophisticated credit card fraud against customers of some of Britain’s biggest supermarkets that may be linked to extremists in Pakistan, a Sunday Times report said. Fraudsters have targeted more than 40 stores in Britain, including those of Asda, Tesco and Sainsbury’s, in an elaborate scam that police say involves tiny devices inserted into the stores’ ‘chip and PIN (personal identification number)’ credit card readers, according to the report.

Specialists say the technology is the most advanced they have seen and is being used in supermarket chains across Europe. The devices, which are reported to have been made in China, are reading and storing selected customers’ Mastercard and personal identification numbers as the cards are inserted into readers at supermarket checkout tills.

Pakistan: The bugs transmit the information by wireless technology to Lahore, Pakistan, according to a senior American counter-intelligence official. Customers’ cards are then cloned and used to steal money from their credit and current accounts and to pay for items such as airline tickets on the Internet.

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