30 June 2011

He thought he was so clever...

30 June 2011 | By johnboy

ACT Policing has arrested and charged a 23-year-old Lyneham man in relation to a series of alleged frauds committed around Canberra.

Police will allege that between March and June this year, the man fraudulently withdraw large sums of cash after reconfiguring various Automatic Teller Machines around parts of Canberra.

About 8.10pm last night (June 29) the man was arrested and taken to the ACT Watch House where he was charged with 13 counts of unauthorised modification of data to cause impairment, 12 counts of theft and one count of attempted theft.

The man will appear in the ACT Magistrates Court this morning.

[Courtesy ACT Policing]

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rosscoact1:22 pm 03 Jul 11

Gungahlin Al said :

harvyk1 said :

How the hell does one modify an ATM? It’s pretty much the ultimate in a secure terminal, with everything going in and out encrypted, hardened casings and internal tampering alarms…

Well Jeff Goldblum was able to plug his MS Windows computer right into the alien mothership to upload his virus and thereby save the world – even had the right plug. So an ATM should be a cinch.

No way MS could be used to infect an alian mothership, it would just go to blue screen and want to send messages back to Moicrosoft to see if they could solve the problem. Jeff Goldblum used a Mac

The Frots11:20 am 03 Jul 11

PaulM said :

Didn’t know “modifying data to cause impairment” was an offense. Must brush up on ACT cyber law.

Have a look at the AFP High-Tech Crime area site – also the latest FBI news site. Some interesting trends there.

PaulM3:52 am 03 Jul 11

Didn’t know “modifying data to cause impairment” was an offense. Must brush up on ACT cyber law.

MJay7:50 pm 30 Jun 11

Anybody see this one on the news tonight? http://news.ninemsn.com.au/technology/8267561/new-credit-cards-to-benefit-scammers

Break out the tinfoil!

The Frots1:33 pm 30 Jun 11

johnboy said :

it’s why cards barely poke out of the machines anymore.

They are quiet difficult to detect if done properly. Some are designed to simply ‘slip over’ the existing port and also contain a micro-camera pointed at the keypad. This will firstly garnish the information from your card (the black stripe) and then photograph your PIN logon. The bad guys then match it up and bingo – !!

The device sounds ‘bulky’ but in fact it is hardly noticable at all.

Gungahlin Al1:19 pm 30 Jun 11

harvyk1 said :

How the hell does one modify an ATM? It’s pretty much the ultimate in a secure terminal, with everything going in and out encrypted, hardened casings and internal tampering alarms…

Well Jeff Goldblum was able to plug his MS Windows computer right into the alien mothership to upload his virus and thereby save the world – even had the right plug. So an ATM should be a cinch.

johnboy1:08 pm 30 Jun 11

it’s why cards barely poke out of the machines anymore.

Jivrashia1:07 pm 30 Jun 11

harvyk1 said :

How the hell does one modify an ATM?

I’m assuming he dressed up as some kind of repair person and installed a skimmers and a camera on the ATM. Has been done enough times in Melbourne and Sydney.

The only problem is that they eventually get caught because someone suspect something fishy about the ATM and reports it, and then it’s only a matter of time for police to wait for the “repair” person to show up to uninstall the devices.

Disinformation1:03 pm 30 Jun 11

harvyk1 said :

How the hell does one modify an ATM? It’s pretty much the ultimate in a secure terminal, with everything going in and out encrypted,

That’s an interesting assumption. You’re not that well aquainted with the transactions then. I’m betting that you’d be rather surprised to know how it all worked two years ago. I’d be surprised if not much has changed since then.

Erg012:18 pm 30 Jun 11

harvyk1 said :

How the hell does one modify an ATM? It’s pretty much the ultimate in a secure terminal, with everything going in and out encrypted, hardened casings and internal tampering alarms…

Not to mention the subset of the keyboard available does not provide enough function to do anything to the underlying OS…

Of course there is always the obvious answer, he was an ATM repair person, in that case he is even more stupid than at first glace, as of course all roads where going to lead to him.

I read an article about this in Wired a couple of months ago, apparently it’s relatively easy on some machines (in the US, at least) if you know what you’re doing. I gather that some ATMs don’t have their service ports secured particularly well.