ATM Hackers Caught Following Car Chase And Gun Shots
from the just-like-the-movies dept
A few years back, there were some stories about how some scammers had found online manuals for popular ATMs, which included a default password, which was rarely changed (yes, that's an amazingly stupid design). This meant that it was fairly easy to program the ATM to believe that it held different denomination bills. For example, you could program it to think that it held $5 bills when it actually held $20s -- and then if you took out "$40" you would be given 8 bills -- or $160. Not surprisingly, other hackers have replicated this scam a bunch of times -- aided in large part by ATM owners who still haven't changed the default password.Still, if you were a scammer pulling such a scam, you might think that it would make sense not to pull it at the same store multiple times. But, that's exactly what two guys did last year, where they tried to hit a local restaurant's ATM for the fourth time. By that point, the manager had been alerted to look out for them, and called the police on them when they came in again. There was a bit of a mess after that, as the manager tried to pull a gun on the scammers, and there was some sort of scuffle, a gunshot, and then a car chase... but eventually the guys were arrested. So, once again: ATM makers: stop offering machines with default passwords. ATM owners: change the default password on your machines. Scammers: don't be so dumb as to try to rip off the same place multiple times (or, maybe that's what we want, since it makes them easier to catch... but it's still dumb).
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Rock the vote - tip the vote over
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survival of the fittest
The importance of adaption and survival of the fittest applies to criminals just as much as everyone else. I'm sure you're aware of the Darwin Awards.
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Every industry
No one ever seems to learn.
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Stupid ATM owner
Seriously, the ATM owner should have been smart enough to change it after getting scammed the first time.
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Re: Stupid ATM owner
VRP
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Jamie, I concur
I say the dumb one is the ATM owner, not necessarily the crook.
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Are you helping criminals?
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One thing that doesn't make sense.
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One thing that doesn't make sense.
Anyway, I'm assuming they used their own ATM card after reprogramming the machine? I suppose they could have used a stolen card, but if they had a stolen card that worked, probably no need to reprogram the machine (other than to get around a daily limit I guess).
So shouldn't it have been fairly easy to discover the identity of the thieves from the records of ATM card they used?
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Re: One thing that doesn't make sense.
1 we see here ATM owners using default password, not changing-it and just waiting to shoot the thieves...
do you think they use brain power there ?
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R u guys coming from some fancy university?
A. very Lil from the boss point of view: both are hackers, one somehow crooked, the other somehow honest...if the honest decide to take the boss for a ride..BIg mess! and who gave him the key? plus a fix rate for every machine recoded plus mileage..conclusion the machines STILL have the default code IF the losses are no so great.. and they are not mostly...end of the story.
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