You may have noticed a “tamper” message on one or several of your terminals and pinpads. What does it mean? Essentially, there is an electronic circuit that is installed to detect when the unit appears to have been tampered with. This is a security measure put in place to protect equipment that is capable of housing debit encryption keys. When the tamper circuit is triggered, the encryption keys in the unit are wiped out. We all want and need this security. However, the tamper circuit is being triggered when there is no tamper at all. Rough handling or dropping of the unit is one cause. We have encrypted a unit, shipped overnight to a merchant, only to have the merchant plug the unit in and receive the tamper error. The strength of the internal battery can also cause the tamper circuit to trip. These batteries are similar to watch batteries and weaken with age. Leaving the units unpowered for prolonged periods also could be a culprit, making the internal battery keep the internal circuits running in the absence of AC power.
At CardWare, we are working with other equipment resellers to assess the problem with real numbers. More to come later.
Mike Firestone
August 18, 2011 at 6:45 pm
We had a unit that was download by a staff member (it worked fine), personally driven across town, plugged in, and it popped up with “tamper”.
We had another situation where we ordered 20 units from a major wholesale house, who powered each one up to inject our key. Upon delivery by Fed Ex, 17 of the 20 were “tamper” locked.
We have, effectively, stopped selling Verifone product unless the merchant demands it!