Cash machines were bugged with MP3s in £200,000 scam

[SUBMAN1]

Careful of cheap cash machines where you can hear the tones being transmitted. This would be really easy to do too. Just pop the MP3 recording on the back of the machine and record the tones that are transmitted to the bank – you could get everything you need from pin numbers to account information. Ouch!

I am never using a free standing cash machine again – I am only going to use the ‘in-wall’ versions.

-X

http://money.guardian.co.uk/news_/st...948027,00.html

Cash machines were bugged with MP3s in £200,000 scam



David Ward
Wednesday November 15, 2006
The Guardian
A man who used MP3 players to bug cash machines and steal the personal details of unsuspecting bank customers has been jailed for 32 months. The sophisticated technical scam secured data that enabled Maxwell Parsons's accomplices to use cloned credit cards to buy £200,000 of goods in high-street shops, Minshull Street crown court in Manchester heard.


The scheme, put into action before chip and pin cards were introduced, is thought to have been the first of its kind to be used in the UK. Parsons, 41, from Gorton, Manchester, and his team attached MP3 players to the backs of free-standing cash machines in bars, bingo halls and bowling alleys. The players then recorded customers' data as it was read on their cash cards and transmitted via a telephone line to banks.

[STEED]

Never used the free standing machines only the hall in the wall ones, even them one's you got too be careful with as false fronts are put on by crooks.

[VipertheSniper]

Originally Posted by STEED

Never used the free standing machines only the hall in the wall ones, even them one's you got too be careful with as false fronts are put on by crooks.

Apart from the fact, that here, every button you press on the cash mashine makes the same tone, just deliberatly type in a false PIN code, if the machine is a fake it won't notice and you know you're standing in front of one.

[STEED]

Originally Posted by VipertheSniper

Apart from the fact, that here, every button you press on the cash mashine makes the same tone, just deliberatly type in a false PIN code, if the machine is a fake it won't notice and you know you're standing in front of one.

The problem we got is the machines are the real deal, the crooks put a false front on where you insert your card which is scanned by them.

And don't bother shredding your old bank statements, do what I do burn them it's the only 100% guarantee. On saying that I saw a consumer programme some weeks ago where banks were showed up too be sloppy when they put the rubbish out. Bank customers details not even shredded.

[VipertheSniper]

Originally Posted by STEED

The problem we got is the machines are the real deal, the crooks put a false front on where you insert your card which is scanned by them.

And don't bother shredding your old bank statements, do what I do burn them it's the only 100% guarantee. On saying that I saw a consumer programme some weeks ago where banks were showed up too be sloppy when they put the rubbish out. Bank customers details not even shredded.

You mean the whole front, or just a scanner around the card slot? Because for that that I think we have the easiest solution possible. On all cash machines in the wall outside the bank there are thick transparent plastic bars around the slot, and since you use the cash machine pretty often, I guess you'll get accustomed to that particular look, so when something else is around the slot, it's suspicious. Cash machines in the bank on the other hand do not always have that plastic bars, but they are always under surveillance, so if they'd try it there they'd have to do it quick.

[STEED]

Originally Posted by VipertheSniper

You mean the whole front, or just a scanner around the card slot?

Card slots. The crooks attend to favour the off the main road banks or around the corner hole in the wall ones from what I heard, no machines in the bank has been done.

[Konovalov]

Originally Posted by STEED

And don't bother shredding your old bank statements, do what I do burn them it's the only 100% guarantee. On saying that I saw a consumer programme some weeks ago where banks were showed up too be sloppy when they put the rubbish out. Bank customers details not even shredded.

A cross-shredder (turns you docs into confetti), should be more than sufficient if you do not have an open fire place or pot-belly wood burner.

[STEED]

Originally Posted by Konovalov

A cross-shredder (turns you docs into confetti), should be more than sufficient if you do not have an open fire place or pot-belly wood burner.

Cross shredders have been proved to fail all they do is make it harder to put the document together, granted only the really determined crook will reconstruct it.