In case any of you loyal readers missed it, KrebsOnSecurity.com and its author were featured in a 60 Minutes interview last night on the credit and debit card breaches that have hit countless retailers and consumers over the past year.

I spent more than a dozen hours with 60 Minutes producers, film crews and the host of this segment — CBS’s Bill Whitaker, so I’m glad they were able to use as much footage as they did. Leading up to the filming, the producer of the show asked some very incisive questions — some of which I didn’t know the answers to myself — and I was hoping the segment would address some of the less discussed issues that contribute to this epidemic of card breaches. But, alas, I hope to explore some of those questions in future posts.

A link to a video and transcript of the program is here.

Much of the segment was shot in a nearby hotel. The rest of it was filmed right in my living room. The 60 Minutes crew had so much camera, sound and lighting gear set up in that room that they actually had to put a ton of other equipment in our kitchen (see the admittedly blurry picture below).

Underground cybercrime shops that sell credit and debit card accounts stolen from retailers are slashing prices and promoting their own Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales as fraudsters gear up for the busy holiday shopping season.

Card data stolen from main street retailers, a.k.a. “dumps,” is sold to crooks who encode the numbers onto new plastic and go shopping for high-priced electronics and gift cards at big box stores. Other shops sell mainly stolen card numbers, expiration dates and card security codes that can only be used to shop at online retailers.

Have a look at the slide show below, which features multiple advertisements pushed out by some of the most bustling crime shops competing for buyers with discounts and promotions. You might have to scroll down a bit to see the slideshow. Advance the slides by hovering over the right edge of the image and clicking the arrow that appears.

It’s nearly impossible for consumers to tell how secure a main street or online merchant is, so it’s best just to shop as if they’re all compromised. That is, if you have the choice between using a credit or debit card, shop with your credit card.

Sure, the card associations and your bank will be quick to point out that you’re not liable for fraudulent charges that you report in a timely manner, but this assurance rings hollow for many who find their checking accounts emptied by card thieves after shopping at a breached merchant with a debit card. Who pays for the fees levied against you by different merchants when your checks bounce? You do. Does the bank reimburse you when your credit score takes a ding because your mortgage or car payment was late? Don’t hold your breath.

Also, if you’re shopping online this holiday season, be wary of phantom stores. If you don’t know much about the seller that has the item you want to buy, take a few minutes to investigate its online reputation. It’s not uncommon for bargain basement, phantom Web sites to materialize during the holiday season and vanish forever not long afterward. If you’re buying merchandise from an online store that is brand new, the risk that you will get scammed increases significantly. But how do you know the lifespan of a site selling that must-have gadget at the lowest price? One easy way to get a quick idea is to run a basic WHOIS search on the site’s domain name. The more recent the site’s “creation date,” the more likely it is a phantom store.

Be careful what you agree to: Check to make sure you know how long the item will take to be shipped, and that you understand the store’s return policies. Also, keep an eye out for hidden surcharges, and be wary of blithely clicking “ok” during the checkout process.

Banks in Europe are warning about the emergence of a rare, virtually invisible form of ATM skimmer involving a so-called “wiretapping” device that is inserted through a tiny hole cut in the cash machine’s front. The hole is covered up by a fake decal, and the thieves then use custom-made equipment to attach the device to ATM’s internal card reader.

According to the European ATM Security Team (EAST), a nonprofit that represents banks in 29 countries, financial institutions in two countries recently reported ATM attacks in which the card data was compromised internally by “wire-tapping” or “eavesdropping” on the customer transaction. The image below shows some criminal equipment used to perpetrate these eavesdropping attacks.

“The criminals cut a hole in the fascia around the card reader where the decal is situated,” EAST described in a recent, non-public report. “A device is then inserted and connected internally onto the card reader, and the hole covered with a fake decal”
[pictured, bottom right].

Pictured above are what appear to be wires that are fed into the machine with some custom-made rods. It looks like the data is collected by removing the decal, fishing out the wire attached to the ATM’s card reader, and connecting it to a handheld data storage device.

I sought clarification from EAST about how the device works. Most skimmers are card slot overlay devices that work by using a built-in component which reads the account data off of the magnetic stripe when the customer inserts the card. But Lachlan Gunn, EAST’s executive director, suggested that this device intercepts the card data from the legitimate card reader on the inside of the ATM. He described the wiretapping device this way:

“It’s where a tap is attached to the pre-read head or read head of the card reader,” Lachlan said. “The card data is then read through the tap. We still classify it as skimming, but technically the magnetic stripe [on the customer/victim’s card] is not directly skimmed as the data is intercepted.”

The last report in my ATM skimming series showcased some major innovations in so-called “insert skimmers,” card-skimming devices made to fix snugly and invisibly inside the throat of the card acceptance slot. EAST’s new report includes another, slightly more advanced, insert skimmer that’s being called an “insert transmitter skimmer.”

Like the one pictured below, an insert transmitter skimmer is made up of two steel plates and an internal battery that lasts approximately one to two weeks. “They do not store data, but transmit it directly to a receiving device — probably placed less than 1 meter from the ATM.

Both of these card skimming technologies rely on hidden cameras to steal customer PIN codes. In a typical skimming attack involving devices that lay directly on top of the card acceptance slot, the hidden camera is a pinhole spy cam that is embedded inside the card slot overlay and angled toward the PIN pad. Just as often, the camera is hidden in a false panel affixed directly above the PIN pan with the pinhole pointed downward.

According to east, the use of false sidebar panels is becoming more prevalent (see image below for an example). It is not unusual for hidden cameras to be obscured inside of phony brochure racks as well.

As this and other insert skimmer attacks show, it’s getting tougher to spot ATM skimming devices. It’s best to focus instead on protecting your own physical security while at the cash machine. If you visit an ATM that looks strange, tampered with, or out of place, try to find another ATM. Use only machines in public, well-lit areas, and avoid ATMs in secluded spots.

Last, but certainly not least, cover the PIN pad with your hand when entering your PIN: That way, if even if the thieves somehow skim your card, there is less chance that they will be able to snag your PIN as well. You’d be amazed at how many people fail to take this basic precaution. Yes, there is still a chance that thieves could use a PIN-pad overlay device to capture your PIN, but in my experience these are far less common than hidden cameras (and quite a bit more costly for thieves who aren’t making their own skimmers).

Are you as fascinated by ATM skimmers as I am? Check out my series on this topic, All About Skimmers.

For the second time this month, Adobe has issued a security update for its Flash Player software. New versions are available for Windows, Mac and Linux versions of Flash. The patch provides additional protection on a vulnerability that Adobe fixed earlier this year for which attackers appear to have devised unique and active exploits.

Adobe recommends users of the Adobe Flash Player desktop runtime for Windows and Macintosh update to v. 15.0.0.239 by visiting the Adobe Flash Player Download Center, or via the update mechanism within the product when prompted. Adobe Flash Player for Linux has been updated to v. 11.2.202.424. 

According to Adobe, these updates provide additional hardening against CVE-2014-8439, which was fixed in a Flash patch that the company released in October 2014. The bulletin for this update is here. Finnish security firm F-Secure says it reported the flaw to Adobe after receiving information from independent researcher Kafeine that indicated the vulnerability was being exploited in-the-wild by an exploit kit (malicious software designed to be stitched into hacked Web sites and foist malware on visitors via browser flaws like this one).

To see which version of Flash you have installed, check this link. IE10/IE11 on Windows 8.x and Chrome should auto-update their versions of Flash.

The most recent versions of Flash are available from the Flash home page, but beware potentially unwanted add-ons, like McAfee Security Scan. To avoid this, uncheck the pre-checked box before downloading, or grab your OS-specific Flash download from here.

Windows users who browse the Web with anything other than Internet Explorer may need to apply this patch twice, once with IE and again using the alternative browser (Firefox, Opera, e.g.).

Greetings from sunny Austin, Texas, where I’m getting ready to wrap up a week-long book tour that began in New York City, then blazed through Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle. I’ve been trying to tweet links to various media interviews about Spam Nation over the past week, but wanted to offer a more comprehensive account and to share some highlights of the tour.

For three days starting last Sunday, I was in New York City — doing a series of back-to-back television and radio interviews. Prior to leaving for New York, I taped television interviews with Jeffrey Brown at the PBS NewsHour; the first segment delves into some of the points touched on in the book, and the second piece is titled “Why it’s harder than you think to go ‘off the grid’.”

On Monday, I was fortunate to once again be a guest on Terri Gross‘s show Fresh Air, which you can hear at this link. Tuesday morning began with a five-minute appearance on CBS This Morning, which included a sit-down with Charlie Rose, Gayle King and Norah O’Donnell. Later in the day, I was interviewed by the MarketPlace Tech Report, MSNBC’s The Cycle, as well as the Tavis Smiley show. Wednesday was a mercifully light day, with just two interviews: KGO-AM and the Jim Bohannon Radio Show.

Thursday’s round of media appearances began at around sunrise in the single-digit temperature Chicago suburbs. My driver from the hotel to all of these events took me aback at first. Roxanna was a petite blonde from Romania who could have just as easily been a supermodel. I thought for a moment someone was playing a practical joke when I first heard her “Gud mornink Meester Krebs” in a Eastern European accent upon stepping into her Town Car, but Roxanna was a knowledgeable driver who got us everywhere on time and didn’t take any crap from anyone on the road.

The first of those interviews was a television segment for WGN News and a taped interview with TouchVision, followed by my first interview in front of a studio audience at Windy City Live.  The guest who went on right before me was none other than the motivational speaker/life coach Tony Robbins, who is a tough act to follow and was also on the show to promote his new book. At six feet seven inches, Robbins is a larger-than-life guy whose mere presence almost took up half the green room. Anyway Mr. Robbins had quite the security detail, so I took this stealthie of Tony as he was confined to the makeup chair prior to his appearance.

On Thursday afternoon, after an obligatory lunch at the infamous Billy Goat burger joint (the inspiration for the “Cheezborger, cheezborger, cheezborger” Saturday Night Live skit) I visited the Sourcebooks office in Naperville, met many of the folks who worked on Spam Nation, signed a metric ton of books and the company’s author wall.

After an amazing dinner with my sister and the CEO of Sourcebooks, we headed to my first book signing event just down the street. It was a well-attended event with some passionate readers and fans, including quite a few folks from @BurbsecWest with whom I had beers afterwards.

On Friday, I hopped a plane to San Francisco and sat down for taped interviews with USA Today and Bloomberg News. The book signing that night at Books Inc. drew a nice crowd and also was followed by some after-event celebration.

Departed for Seattle the next morning, and sat down for a studio interview with longtime newsman (and general mensch) Herb Weisbaum at KOMO-AM. The signing in Seattle, at Third Place Books, was the largest turnout of all, and included a very inquisitive crowd that bought up all of the copies of Spam Nation that the store had on hand.

If you’re planning to be in Austin tonight — Nov. 24 — consider stopping by B&N Arboretum at 7:00 p.m. and get your copy of Spam Nation signed. I’ll be holding one more signing — 7:00 p.m. in Washington, D.C.’s Politics & Prose on Dec. 4.

For those on the fence about buying Spam Nation, Slate and LinkedIn both ran excerpts of the book. Other reviews and interviews are available at Fortune.com, Yahoo News, and CreditCards.com. Also, I was interviewed at length several times over the past month by CBS’s 60 Minutes, which is doing a segment on retail data breaches. That interview could air as early as Nov. 30. On that note, the Minneapolis Star Tribune ran a lengthy story on Sunday that followed up on some information I first reported a year ago about a Ukrainian man thought to be tied to the Target breach, among others.