The inclusion of RAM scrapers in a recent Verizon Business list of the top data breach attack vectors has prompted a bit of buzz about what exactly RAM scraping is and how much of a threat it poses.



"A RAM scraper as identified in the Verizon Business Data Breach Investigation report is a piece of customized malware created to grab credit card, PIN, and other confidential information out of a system's volatile memory."  The RAM-scraping breaches in Verizon's report occurred in point-of-sale (POS) servers.

RAM scraping is not really what's new, but what Verizon flagged as the emergent threat trend is RAM scraping in POS devices.





Why go after the data in RAM? Because in many ways it's easier to grab there. Current PCI compliance standards require the end-to-end encryption of sensitive payment card data when being transmitted, received, or stored.



Data then is exposed at the endpoints, during processing, when the unencrypted credit card data is resident in the POS device's RAM.  That's where the RAM scraper can cherry-pick the data being processed, capturing only those strings related to card identifiers rather than performing bulk data grabs. This minimizes the scraper's presence and, far from incidentally, reduces the prospects of its being detected as a result of dramatically increased server traffic or other illicit activity flags.



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