Hacker Meet Came Across Fake ATM
This week criminals dealing with scam of an ATM card skimming did a big mistake. They make an attempt to get the things done at Defcon hacker conference that took place in Las Vegas. At the start of the conference some days back the participants of the conference observed that ATM positioned in Riviera Hotel, a place which acts as host to the annual conference, was not quite right, looks were not of a normal ATM machine.
As per a senior organizer of conference named Priest, the screen where there is camera normally in ATM machine, looked too dark. On shining a flashlight in that dark area, a PC was found in that area.
The ATM installed at Riviera Hotel appeared to be a working system, but the machine would scan the card information and get PIN numbers recorded that were entered by the people on putting their cards into the machine. Priest the conference organizer was not sure about how long this card skimming ATM was at Riviera. Conference organizers were quick to inform local law enforcement department who took away the machine maybe on Thursday or Friday, according to Priest, who in his day job works as civil servant.
Small devices, credit card skimmers are placed on top of credit card readers for stealing information and fake ATM machines are very common these days. The intention is to get card information and PIN number; once these data are received by criminals, they can use them to have fake ATM card or credit card and which in turn can be used to drain out money from victim’s account.
Priest added that these devices are used by unsophisticated criminal gangs as they realize that this method is a very easy one to pile money without being caught. The criminals who installed fake ATM at Riviera Hotel were not aware that place selected was not a correct one as about 8000 security professionals were to be part of the conference at the hotel. Priest said that the criminals were smart enough to place the machine in the area where there was no security to catch them; in fact the spot selected was very next to hotel security entrance.