Security Safety Tips for Protecting your PIN Code

How to Prevent Thieves from Stealing your PIN Code

It’s important to stay up-to-date with current security safety tips. Unfortunately, criminals always seem to come up with new ways to commit crimes. There is a new technique that is becoming pretty popular and, shockingly, this technique makes it pretty easy to steal an ATM PIN code using only an iPhone.

Thieves are using a new iPhone attachment that displays infrared, which allows thieves to “see” the temperature of things. To steal a PIN code, a criminal waits behind you in line. When you make a debit or credit transaction, your last step is usually inputting your PIN. Once you’ve done this and stepped away from the keypad, the criminal steps forward, points his or her phone at the keypad and uses the infrared viewer to see the last PIN that was typed in. It works by displaying the heat that was generated by your body as you touched the keys, so that means one of the most common security tips – shielding the key pad when you type in your PIN – won’t help.

A study on this technique showed that people using an infrared device were able to figure out their victims’ PIN code 80% of the time if the image was taken right after the code was entered.

This technique can work for more than just PIN codes in stores and on ATM keypads. It can also be used on cars and door entry systems that use a keypad and PIN. You will need to be aware of this crime and use security tips in order to prevent it from happening to you.

The Security Safety Tips That Will Keep Your PIN Safe

So what security safety tips can you use to you protect yourself from this crime?

One piece of good news is that this technique doesn’t work on metal keypads. Another piece of good news is that you can protect yourself by simply resting your fingers on other keys of the keypad while entering your code. By resting your fingers on other numbers (but not pressing them) it’s possible to fool the infrared camera. It won’t be able to tell the difference between the heat left behind on the keys pressed and the heat that remains on the keys that you simply rested your fingers on.

This is just one of the security safety tips that you should keep in mind.

This latest crime technique shows how important it is that you are always aware of your actions and surroundings when you are in public. This is especially true while handling financial matters. Criminals are always looking for new ways to steal PIN codes and other financial information, thus so it’s important that you remain diligent and on top of the latest criminal techniques.