Research Team Wins Distinguished Paper Award

The Team of Skim Reaper ResearchersA team of University of Florida Department of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) researchers won the Distinguished Paper Award at the 27th USENIX Security Symposium. Nolen Scaife, a doctoral researcher; Christian Peeters, a Ph.D. student; and Patrick Traynor, The John H. and Mary Lou Dasburg Preeminent Chair in Engineering and professor, presented the paper, “Fear the Reaper: Characterization and Fast Detection of Card Skimmers,” this past week.

Detecting credit card skimmers at point of sale terminals, gas pumps and ATMs can be difficult. In the paper, the group discusses the first study “based on skimmers recovered by the NYPD’s Financial Crimes Task Force over a 16 month period.” The research they conducted at the Florida Institute for Cybersecurity (FICS) Research led to the creation of the Skim Reaper, the first robust and portable mechanism for detecting card skimmers.

Learn more about Skim Reaper or read more from UF.

*Photo courtesy of USENIX. From left: Adrienne Porter Felt, program co-chair; Christian Peeters; Patrick Traynor; Nolen Scaife; and William Enck, program co-chair.


Allison Logan
Marketing & Communications Specialist
Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering