Flash Mob Steals $9 Million From ATMs 232
Mike writes "A global flash mob of ATM thieves netted $9 million in fraud against ATMs in 49 cities around the world. The computer system for a company called RBS WorldPay was hacked. One service of the company is the ability for employers to pay employees with the money going directly to a debit card that can be used in any ATM. The hacker was able to infiltrate the supposedly secure system and steal the information necessary to duplicate or clone people's ATM cards. Shortly after midnight Eastern Time on November 8, the FBI believes that dozens of the so-called cashers were used in a coordinated attack on ATMs around the world. Over 130 different ATMs in 49 cities worldwide were accessed in a 30-minute period on November 8. 'We've never seen one this well coordinated,' the FBI said. So far, the FBI has no suspects and has made no arrests (PDF) in this scam."
cough (Score:5, Funny)
in other news a flash mob recovered all the rights that have been stolen from the people by their governments over the last few years
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Wow, that comment was both powerful and funny at the same time.
Re:cough (Score:5, Funny)
And the money went where? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And the money went where? (Score:5, Interesting)
It was probably structured like a lot of the stolen credit-card number sites: a high-reputation user announces an opportunity, then many other users pay up-front to participate. At the given time, the critical info is released to all, and it's then every man for himself trying to grab as much money as possible.
Re:And the money went where? (Score:5, Informative)
I went and RTFA. Given 130+ ATMs in 50 cities, definitely looks like the sell-it model, not a massive criminal organization: very high fan-out (50 cities) and low leaf count (about 3 ATMs per second level node.) That shape is never seen in ongoing organized businesses - they should have a much more uniform hierarchical structure (e.g. 50 cities = 2500 ATMs.)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:And the money went where? (Score:5, Interesting)
Two excellent analogies. I've been looking at corporations (in the broad sense) for 30 years, and it took me a long time to realize that you might as well ignore what people say about how they organize, and just look at what the organization actually is. That tells you almost everything you need to know.
Re:And the money went where? (Score:4, Interesting)
This honestly sounds more like terrorism than anything Bill O'Reilly spouts off about.
Think of it this way. Say you want to fund the Mumbai attacks ver. 2.0, but are short on cash. This sounds like a great plan straight from the terrorist handbook. All you need is a few willing or even unknowning smurfs and a decent hacker connection. How do you hide the four million dollars you just stole? Have people you don't know steal another five million on top of it. The FBI won't be inundated with false leads to chase, they'll be loaded with dozens of real suspects to chase down.
The article mentions the cards were cloned then cracked, so a lot of the math can go out the window. I wonder if any of the money was just wire transfered directly to the cards themselves, for later withdrawl or even use a a normal debit card? It doesn't say how much could be taken out at one time, only that there is normally a $500 dollar limit. Though it wouldn't surprise me to hear that the FBI is playing coy with the numbers. They've apparently been sitting on the story for three+ months.
This money will probably find its way back to the hands of the genuinely bad people of the world.
Looking at their photos... (Score:5, Funny)
They don't look like someone who just won a lottery to me.
They look more like homeless people.
Which brings up the question - why aren't there more homeless people robbing banks out there?
I mean... they are in a clear advantage.
They are invisible AND they have nothing to lose.
Worst case scenario - they get sent to a jail. HA!
3 meals a day, clothing, housing and health-care at the cost of the society.
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It's okay. Many homeless are mentally ill, possibly from the PTSD they got from Vietnam. They got so screwed up in our nation's defense that they couldn't come up with such an elaborate scheme. So we really have nothing to worry about! All is as it should be in America.
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Bank robbery is one of the major crimes with the fewest perpetrators caught. It's a well-kept secret but nowhere near "jsut about every" bankrobber gets caught.
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They get caught in Alaska, and I'd imagine in Hawaii too.
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Because robbing banks requires at least a modicum of ability, some organizational skill, and a bit of motivation. If you've got all of the above, you're unlikely to be homeless in the first place.
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A getaway car helps too.
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And weapons... big fuck off shiny ones...
Re:Looking at their photos... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because robbing banks requires at least a modicum of ability, some organizational skill, and a bit of motivation. If you've got all of the above, you're unlikely to be homeless in the first place.
Gotta disagree. Homelessness doesn't correlate well with a lack of ability or organizational skill, or even lack of motivation. It does, however, correlate well with heavy addiction and mental illness, both of which make it pretty damn hard to use one's ability or organizational skills.
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Did it ever occur to you that it's possible that being homeless contributes to one's becoming an addict or mentally ill? Correlation doesn't indicate causation, you know.
I have met more than one homeless person who was not addicted or mentally ill, but certainly at risk for becoming so as long as they stayed on the street. Funny, I started volunteering at a local shelter, where I raised the money to set up a tiny computer lab (since l
Re:Looking at their photos... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Sounds like a Snopes candidate to me.
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Reminds me of a story a friend told me. Someone I knew from high school was hitchhiking across Canada, again... and in case you are not in the know, that's a long way.
Anyhow I have been told by those that do this that apparently there are places called "dead zones" that can really suck if you get caught in them. Usually remote rural communities, that if you get dropped off there they are really hard to get out of. Oh and it is also cold up here.
Anyway my friend, hit one of these dead zones and got stuck. He
Re:Looking at their photos... (Score:4, Interesting)
You sound like someone who's never spent any time in jail.
Good for you. Strangely, though, most homeless people don't think of jail as a preferable housing opportunity. That's just one more of the sad Republican fantasies: that jail is such a great place to be. Fortunately for us, many of them have gotten to experience it first hand in the last several years, and with luck, many more will have that opportunity, including the doped-up fatso who coined the term "Club Gitmo".
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Where I grew up we had a homeless guy who threw a bottle through a window every year on the first snow. The judge put him in jail until the spring.
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It is hard for homeless people to maintain the basic equipment for bank robbing. Even if they somehow get their hands on a gun, getting ammo can be hard.
Even more importantly, a vast number of the homeless are suffering from mental illness in moderate to large degrees. Other than people made homeless temporarily by circumstance (forclosure, etc) who are largely only homeless for short (months at a time) periods and never reach a "rob a bank" level of desperation (they have hope that they can get back on the
How's this a flash mob? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How's this a flash mob? (Score:5, Interesting)
I thought flash mobs are groups of people in the same place at the same time. Not all over the world?
By the name, I suppose a flash mob suggests a mob of people doing something 'in a flash' (in a short period of time).
A mob doesn't necessarily have to be in the same spot, at least it doesn't have to be the way I understand it.
Perhaps in the past a mob would have to be in the same location, but due to the way the world is all interlinked nowadays someone can affect something on the otherside of the world, meaning the world has gotten a lot 'smaller' as such.
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A flash mob is a phenomenon where people hear about something happening somewhere in the world (either through the "grapevine" or on the news) and all decide to use teleport booths to go there all at the same time. The mob "flashes' into existence and the people can and do often join in on any chaos, causing simple situations to often escalate into full blown riots in the space of a few minutes. Luckily, police recently figured out that they could redirect the teleportation booths into a riot control center
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3 and 5 seem to apply.
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Yeah, but any time people have to consult a dictionary to justify a writer's choice of words, then the writer has failed to do their job. Good writers choose their words very carefully, taking into account what the readers might read into it.
No matter what the dictionary says, if a significant number of readers believe you have chosen the wrong words to describe something, then you have chosen the wrong words to describe it.
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Of course the author may have just been making a pun. Clearly an organized crime, so "mob".The thing that makes it news is the timing of a large number of transactions. "flash mob" is a well enough known term, so "pun pun pun" goes off in the authors brain.
And it just went over slashdot's collective head.
Re:How is it a mob at all? (Score:5, Insightful)
zoom out.
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Booth was a patriot
Apparently you hold the same low opinion of patriots as I do.
I do (Score:2)
any group or collection of persons or things.
And they are not a group why again? Kind of a coincidence they all decided to do the same thing at the same time, everywhere...
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The world is a single place, it just depends what kind of scale you're on.
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Re:How's this a flash mob? (Score:5, Funny)
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You're are right. And they make some people nervous. So not TPTB are working to associate flash mobs with crime so they can make them illegal.
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The group of criminals in that article isn't a flash mob. Stop perpetuating the FUD.
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This is simply organized crime. It in no way fits the definition of a flash mob any more than 5 people showing up to rob a bank is a flash mod.
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I believe this is the flash mafia, not a flash mob.
-Isaac
Re:How's this a flash mob? (Score:5, Funny)
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The mob converged on the ATM network at roughly the same time. The place does not need to be a physical location.
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$9 Million? (Score:4, Insightful)
$9 Million stolen from a bank? Peanuts compared to the next $900 Billion the banks are stealing back again - a hundred thousand times more.... I can't even get to grips with that scale of money....
Re:$9 Million? (Score:5, Insightful)
$9 Million stolen from a bank? Peanuts compared to the next $900 Billion the banks are stealing back again - a hundred thousand times more.... I can't even get to grips with that scale of money....
There's a BIG difference. One group was a bunch of unimaginative, unethical, thieving liars and cowards. The other group had the imagination to do something and take advantage of a weak poorly designed system that gets the guys with the badges and guns after you.
It takes a REAL criminal mind to lobby the regulatory agencies and Congress with dirty money to make your thieving legal. And it's really a piece of work when those lying thieves walk away with tens of millions of dollars in bonuses for cheating.
Re:$9 Million? (Score:4, Funny)
There's a BIG difference. One group was a bunch of unimaginative, unethical, thieving liars and cowards. The other group wasn't made up of bank executives.
^ Fixed.
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They hacked one bank, and probably the bank limits the amount of money it can deliver per day, to prevent "fresh money" shortcomings, I doubt someone could "collapse" the Western banking system like this.
And yeah, Putin & the Russian government is much better, and not based on capitalism at all :|
Re:$9 Million? (Score:4, Funny)
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It's not theft, it's enslavement.
My parents' generation just enslaved mine to the Chinese for several trillion dollars rather than face the prospect that they might have royally fucked themselves in their attempts to extract money from nothing.
The only way this kind of financial planning makes any sense is if you plan on being dead before the bills come due.
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My parents' generation just enslaved mine to the Chinese for several trillion dollars rather than face the prospect that they might have royally fucked themselves in their attempts to extract money from nothing.
You just don't understand zero-point economics! We can extract money from the false vaccum!
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And the $18 BILLION stolen by CEOs of said banks.
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And saying as Royal Bank of Scotland has been nationalised after going bust, it is my tax payer pounds that will be paying for this.
Its the NEW STIMULUS PACKAGE!!! (Score:3, Funny)
This doesn't sound right (Score:4, Insightful)
The article says over $9,000,000 was stolen using only 100 cards in 49 cities in a 30 minute period. That, boys and girls, is $90,000 per card. The article says the limits on the cards were overridden, using them to make withdrawals in multiple increments of $500 or so. $90,000 / $500 is 180 withdrawals in a 30 minute period, or 6 withdrawals per minute.
This article doesn't pass the basic sniff test. It reeks of either disinformation or seriously bad math.
Re:This doesn't sound right (Score:5, Insightful)
The article says over $9,000,000 was stolen using only 100 cards in 49 cities in a 30 minute period. That, boys and girls, is $90,000 per card. The article says the limits on the cards were overridden, using them to make withdrawals in multiple increments of $500 or so. $90,000 / $500 is 180 withdrawals in a 30 minute period, or 6 withdrawals per minute.
This article doesn't pass the basic sniff test. It reeks of either disinformation or seriously bad math.
Yes, but it doesn't say how many copies of each card they made.
Re:This doesn't sound right (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's look at it another way.
$9MM / ($500 / transaction) / 130 ATMs / 30 min = ~4.6 transactions/ATM/min
Still seems rather high. I suppose I've never timed it, but it always feels like it takes more than 13 seconds to get my money at an ATM...
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Depends on the machine I guess, some can be pretty quick, but it still is quite a lot.
But whats with the $500 marker? Around here max is 9900 DKR = $2000 per transaction. Then we are talking 1 transaction a minute..
Re:This doesn't sound right (Score:4, Funny)
iTowelie
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Depends on where you're at. In Europe it's not uncommon to be able to get your cash out in less than 15 seconds. Put your card in, select how much you want, pin and you get it right away. Here in the US for some or another reason it seems like all ATM's still need to dial in on 56k after you typed in your pin. It's also not uncommon to be able to get more than $500/atm. I've been able to get 2000 out of ATM's before.
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I only wish the people ahead of me at the ATM were this fast. It always seems like th
Not quite... (Score:3, Informative)
Here is the amazing part: With these cashers ready to do their dirty work around the world, the hacker somehow had the ability to lift those limits we all have on our ATM cards. For example, I'm only allowed to take out $500 a day, but the cashers were able to cash once, twice, three times over and over again. When it was all over, they only used 100 cards but they ripped off $9 million.
Article DOES NOT say what their per-withdrawal limit was.
What if DOES SAY is that they were able to withdraw money multiple times, with the daily sum being over $500.
It also says that the writer of the article has a daily limit of $500 but that is besides the point.
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the hacker somehow had the ability to lift those limits we all have on our ATM cards.
He hacked the Gibson or something...
But I would be so bold to say that he might have left the same limit on the card.
Instead, he/she/or it - just changed the codes for banknotes inside the machine. You know.. Like couple of years ago with those Tranaxes... [hackedgadgets.com]
So... you just tell the ATM that its 100s are 5s - and then repeatedly ask for 5s.
$500 limit coughs up $100.000 +/- couple of actual 5s.
Need new friends (Score:3, Funny)
I need more friends willing to say "Here's this ATM card. At midnight tonight, make as many $500 withdrawals as you can in 30 minutes and put them onto this card. You get to keep half of what's on the card."
Where do you find friends like that?
/humor
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The same friends that get you a 52" plasma TV that "fell off a truck" for $100.00.. he has 20 that fell of that truck.
If you lived in chicago I'd introduce you to a few if you're worthy.
P.S. if you talk too much, you dont just lose your card in the club.....
I hear that in NY there are these kinds of "friends" as well. not that I know any myself. I just heard of them. you know?
Re:This doesn't sound right (Score:5, Funny)
Here we have $9,000,000 listed as the retail value of the loss, the actual paper money they got is nearly worthless, because ATMs only issue "bank notes", nothing more.
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Re:This doesn't sound right (Score:5, Funny)
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That's actually a very interesting point. With fractional reserve lending, the monetary system we currently use, an original $1,000 deposit into a bank balloons into [chrismartenson.com] $10,000 of real money. So they theoretically _could_ use the RIAA tactic as a $9M potential is essentially removed with the withdrawal of $900,000.
Going back to the OP, that would mean 18 withdrawals per card over a 30-minute period, or just under two minutes per transaction. We are now in the domain of the eminently plausible.
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In Britain the withdrawal limit is generally £250 - £300 per day.
This looks like a job for... (Score:3, Interesting)
Since the M in ATM stands for Machine, saying ATM Machine is redundant.
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That's always bothered me too. It's like DNS (depending on usage on this word though).
And his sidekick. . . (Score:5, Funny)
Redundant Boy!
Also, since the N in PIN stands for Number, saying PIN number is redundant. TFA didn't make this mistake, but since they go together so often I though I'd point it out for completeness.
One time I heard a friend say "I want to get some cash out of the ATM Machine, but I can't remember my PIN Number."
He's dead now.
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Then you should say "AT machine".
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Go ask someone if they've heard of an "AT machine". I bet you'll either get a "no?", or "do you mean an ATM?"
Holy Bonus Batman! (Score:5, Funny)
That's almost as much as John Thain (of Merrill Lynch) thought he should get for securing the bailout funds!
Re:Holy Bonus Batman! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is such an insightful comment.
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. — Thomas Jefferson
and I still had mod points just yesterday...
I wonder (Score:5, Funny)
Did they hack the ATM machines after stealing the PIN numbers?
I have to go work in some CSS style sheets for a web site that links ISBN numbers to UPC codes. I hope they don't make me redundant.
ATM Machines? (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder what the PIN Number was that they all used in those ATM Machines. Maybe they used a custom PCB Board to prototype the hack. Then they downloaded the plans onto a CD Disc. I'll bet they literally died after they got away with all the cash.
Anyways, I could care less.
Inside job (Score:2, Insightful)
and where are the cameras on these Atm's?
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Interesting question.. I would guess the cameras got pictures of them, but they haven't been caught yet. I guess it's possible the participants were far from home, got pretty far within a few days, and didn't look suspicious to any law enforcement.
It's probable they'll eventually get caught in that case, as facial recognition technology becomes more widespread, they may be identified automatically in 3 or 4 years, when they eventually pass through a public place that's closely monitored
The world is a
RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland) (Score:5, Interesting)
So if you use Worldpay on your website, I would get shot of it sharpish. They are the kind of outfit that will have multiple holes in their security. (I used to use their payment processor back in 2002.)
The crime is easy. It's the getaway. . . (Score:2)
That many people coordinating themselves, presumably using the intertubes. . ?
If even one person was caught on a security camera or ratted out for having $300,000 in cash under the bed. . , or has mental issues and throws a hissy-fit and decides to name names. Well that person could get everybody caught.
So that means the information security being used by the organizers will have to have been reliable. Lucky for them, they're hackers, so they're pretty smart. Unfortunately for them, they're hackers, whic
The crime might not be theft ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyone hoping to pocket a percentage of $9,000,000 by giving a bunch of passwords to a bunch of people you don't know, and then assuming you won't get grassed out to the cops is likely making a major mistake.
If the criminal is smart, a better strategy might be to "give" the information away to the right group of people. This might give someone a smug sense of "revenge" against a former employer. Someone could short the stock in the stock market, or the theft could cover up some insider funny business. The initial criminal act may be different than what it appears.
Alternatively, the actual "inside" mastermind may actually be a victim too. Maybe someone conned an insider for information, or access to a laptop, and just sold the information. Maybe someone got hold of the backup tapes. This might actually a fairly low-value theft for the original criminal.
130 ATMs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Hang on a second: That works out to over $69000 per ATM. Do they really have that much cash loaded in each one? I'd be surprised if that's true.
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AFAIK UK ATM's have about £250,000 in the big ones in branches. This is one reason banks want to reduce the number of them or charge for them. They lose a wodge of interest on the cash sitting in the machines.
No need to lose money on it. I built a cash-tracking system years ago for a big grocery store chain. Across a thousand large grocery stores there is tens of millions of dollars sitting in safes and cash drawers. The main reasons for the tracking system were to reduce shrinkage and to enable just-in-time inventory management (large stores, especially those that cash checks, treat cash as an orderable inventory item). Even without those issues, however, the chain figured they'd more than pay for the cost
Funniest ATM theft I've heard of (Score:5, Interesting)
The funniest ATM theft I've heard of took place in Saskatchewan, Canada. This took place on a long weekend in a sleepy little rural town.
4:00 AM sees our thieves breaking into the local gravel contractor. After breaking through the gate they steal a gravel truck and an oxy-acetelene torch. Next stop is the post treating plant about 1/2 mile (1 km) down the highway. They steal a loader. This is what is used to load poles and posts onto semi-trailors.
By now its about 4:15 or so. Did they make noise? Well - a diesel truck and 350 HP diesel loader will make some noise I suppose. It woke some of the locals up.
Around the corner from the bank about one (1) block away is the local police station which is manned 24x7. The police are at their desks thinking the gravel contractor must be getting an early start this morning.
So the thieves drive the loader over to the bank. The reach in through the roof totally demolishing the building and grab the ATM which is firmly bolted to the concrete floor and footings. Seems the concrete wasn't much of a match for the 350 HP loader because the ATM was cleanly plucked through the gapping hole and dropped into the back of the dump truck.
By now the cops were heading for their cars thinking there must have been a big accident on Main Street.
Our thieves meanwhile shut off the loader and hopped into the dump truck and took off.
A few miles south of town they stopped at an abandoned farm yard and took their time with the oxy-acetelene torch and chopped the ATM apart.
Having done this they took the money and casually left the scene of the crime. So far no one has been caught! So far apparently these thieves are keeping their mouths closed. Apparently there are no leads.
The best part of this story is the locals still laugh about their bank robbery! When you live in a sleepy Saskatchewan rural town then once in a while a little excitement spices up an otherwise dreary life.
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This would have made a funny Corner Gas episode IMHO.
Lying liars (Score:2, Informative)
I've never used RBS Worldpay, but was notified several weeks ago that my financial records for the past 20 years, as well as SSN, were compromised.
What's incredibly distressing is that RBS Worldpay (part of Citizens Financial Group) shares data with other affiliates. I just have a basic checking account in one of their banks, that's it--no credit cards, no gift cards, no payroll cards.
However, they didn't go public with the news or notify any customers until the day before Xmas eve in December 2008: http [prnewswire.com]
Bias in the Line up? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Re:Inquiring minds want to know (Score:4, Insightful)
Did he hack the bank across state lines from his home?
That's not a requirement for a federal crime in the US; theft from any federally insured bank (which is almost all of them) is a U.S. federal crime, even if the crime occurred in only one state and even if the bank operates under a state charter.
How about... Hacking the ATM from the ATM? (Score:5, Interesting)
May I be so bold to suggest that there was no actual "hacking" taking place at all?
By "hacking" I mean the stuff that movies and TV tells us that hacking looks like.
A bespectacled nerd in his teens or early twenties, furiously typing something at his green and black screen filled with lines upon lines of scrolling text, uttering "Come on... come on..." until he suddenly "hacks the Gibson" and a welcome screen appears, upon which he jumps up yelling "YES! I AM INVINCIBLE!".
TFA tells us the following:
Here is the amazing part: With these cashers ready to do their dirty work around the world, the hacker somehow had the ability to lift those limits we all have on our ATM cards. For example, I'm only allowed to take out $500 a day, but the cashers were able to cash once, twice, three times over and over again. When it was all over, they only used 100 cards but they ripped off $9 million.
- known limit - $500
- 100 ATMcards used
- $9 million gone
That comes out to about 90k per card, right?
Does anyone remember that little issue with Tranax ATMs from couple of years ago? [hackedgadgets.com]
It smells to me that something similar happened here. Someone leaving the ADMIN pass at 55555555 or 12345678.
There was probably no need for hacking cards - they probably left the same limit.
Instead, he/she/or it - just changed the codes for banknotes inside the machine.
So... you just tell the ATM that its 100s are 5s - and then repeatedly ask for 5s.
$500 limit coughs up ~$100.000 +/- couple of earlier withdrawals that already left the machine a few 100s short.
In other words - about $90.000 per card.
The beauty of it?
Those suspects in the photos may be regular Joes and Janes who came later, found the machine giving 100s for 5s - and got caught on camera.
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There is a bank of some sort backing the debit card, but it's not necessarily a traditional bank.
This is very common with large employers of low-income people, because a significant percentage of their employees don't have a proper bank account.
It's really very similar to the employer opening a checking account for the employee but not providing the ability to write checks or do deposits.
The employees are issued a card, which they continue to use for the duration of their employment. Every payday, additiona
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I got one so I could make sure my wife had some spare cash around... dropped it after a while though, as they charged 12% of all deposits and 7.5% of all withdrawls - it's about the most expensive way of handling money there is (and that was the cheapest one available).
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