Comments on: Coordinated multinational ATM fraud nets $13M in one night

By: Incipient Madness

Incipient Madness — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 17:23:00 +0000

Scary thing is that a scam like this involved possibly a hundred people. That will be its undoing. The more people involved the more likely people get caught.

That’s one way to know the moon landings were real.

By: Omar Chatriwala

Omar Chatriwala — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 16:42:00 +0000

Thieves? Co-conspirators? How can this not be called clear evidence of organized crime on a global scale?

By: tubacat

tubacat — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 08:52:00 +0000

This reminds me of when ATMs were first introduced in England, around 1977 or 78. The way they worked (at first) was: you put your card in the machine and it spit out 10 pounds. Then you could do it again. And again. And again. Until the machine ran out. Only lasted a very short time…

By: redesigned

redesigned — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 02:31:00 +0000

scary thought, but does anyone know if atm machines record the serial number (or whatever it is called) of bills they dispense linked to the accounts they came from? that would be a real eye opener for thieves and people that use cash for other less then legal transactions…

By: Nikolaj Mariager

Nikolaj Mariager — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 20:16:00 +0000

I wonder why it doesn’t check location. I mean, there’s no way you could make a withdrawal on two sides of the planet in a few minutes.

By: Nagurski

Nagurski — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 18:58:00 +0000

In Russia, you defraud bank.

By: dhoskins

dhoskins — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 18:40:00 +0000

Wouldn’t it be easy enough to keep local information on how much the last card number has withdrawn, and keep a limit on payouts? They won’t have to dial out, just know the number.

By: ScytheNoire

ScytheNoire — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Banks – Either they let you get ripped off, or they are ripping you off. That mattress is starting to look like a much smarter choice.

By: Nadreck

Nadreck — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:53:00 +0000

I wonder if that network is still using triple-DES encryption? That’s getting kind of old and there are probably a lot of custom DES cracking chips out on the Black Market now.

By: cservant

cservant — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:37:00 +0000

I suspect it’s coding hell if you want to implement something like that. I don’t know much about multinational ATM networks, but I’ve seen coding for credit card networks.

You have to jump through a lot of hoops just to do something simple as in check if this credit card has sufficient funds, validate card(no not just validate the number!). It’s all propriety libraries and different hell pending on which network you choose. Reason for that is security and instruction build up over the years.

By: Michael Polo

Michael Polo — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:21:00 +0000

The fact that they didn’t have any auditing/flagging software in place, and/or they have no one watching things closely on the weekend is shameful. Why not just leave the vault open over lunch hour?

By: zikman

zikman — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 17:17:00 +0000

man… I want some.

By: Fernando Montelbon

Fernando Montelbon — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:39:00 +0000

Sometimes you’ve just got to be impressed.

By: Steve Mayne

Steve Mayne — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 16:14:00 +0000

To quote John Connor in Terminator 2: “Easy money.”