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Cybergang Compromises Every ATM In Russian City
Orome1 writes "A group of fraudsters has been arrested in Yakutsk and Moscow for allegedly compromising all the ATMs in the city of Yakutsk — population: around 210,000 — in the Republic of Yakutia in the Russian Federation. Three of the men formed the actual criminal group, and the fourth — a Moscow-based malware developer — was 'subcontracted' by them and received 100,000 rubles (some $3200) to develop a custom ATM virus with which they would infect the devices."
ATM's take money from you.
The article said one was a sys admin who apparently had access to the ATM's, and another was a former IT director, but still you'd think there'd be some security to prevent some crooked employee from just emptying out an ATM whenever he felt like it.
Scary how easy it was to compromise an entire city like that. I think I'll stop using ATMs for a while and switch back to bank tellers. Then again, humans are pretty easy to infect, too, using this virus called "money" that makes them do diabolical things.
When MacAfee comes out with a human honesty scanner, that'll help a lot.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Everyone knows that HOSTS files despite being slower, more difficult to maintain and distrubte and not preemptive or reactive in the least to threats, have magical powers to stop viruses!
APK
P.S. ==> We really need to get the word out and let people know, HOSTS files are the only method 100% SECURE against unknown threats.
They paid him only $3200 to compromise every ATM in a city of 210K people? That doesn't seem like nearly enough.
Why aren't they just a "gang"? Is it because this crime has to do with technology and is, therefore, magically different than any other crime? If these guys had robbed all the banks in the city the traditional way, we wouldn't call them a "bankgang" or a "robberygang", would we? If they skimmed money the traditional way (bribes and scams) would we call them a "financegang"?
I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
Now I'm glad I didn't win that prize from MTVski.
Blar.
Maybe then the world will learn not to run Windows on these kind of devices.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
about Yakutsk usually being easy to protect
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Time to go back to OS/2!
For a moment I thought this was a second story in a row about Paypal being complete corporate douche bags.
fuckin software guys are underpaid everywhere
. . . ATM defrauds you!
Here's the thing, though... WHO in their right mind would use an ATM is Russia anyway? Good grief, I'd be surprised if they were *NOT* compromised.
If I were to visit Russia, I think I would opt for in-bank transactions and cash-only, *OR* a special limited balance account set up SPECIFICALLY for that trip, to be shit-canned upon return home.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
So get this, then, they have these other dudes with guns who force people to pay them money so that it can be funneled back into the Ponzi scheme to keep it going.
On second thought, what we have here is far worse than in Russia. Damn Bank of America.
--- Liberty in our Lifetime
Who the hell wakes up in the morning, looks in the mirror, and says, "I'm going to be evil today"? Of course these hackers aren't as evil as Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo, but I just don't think I'd want to go on living if I ever found myself robbing ATM's or sending billions of spam emails.
You know, if you'd asked people in the 1980s what they expect "Cybergangs" in 2010 to be, I bet they would guess something way cooler.
These people actually have cybernetic implants, making them cybogs, hence the "cyber" prefix. Gangs are traditionally are very discriminatory, so each member of the gang is a cyborg, making them a "cyber-gang". Each member of the cyber-gang can hold up to 80 gigabytes in their brains, which is what they used to store the payload which remained undetected by norms.
Twinstiq, game news
See this Sinfest comic strip. :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Average net wage in Russia is about 400 euros (~530 dollars) a month. The differences within middle class are large but not massive (average wage for engineers in russia is some $800 a month, give or take) As can be expected, it is more than that in the big cities but less than that in the more rural areas. As such, this sum was about half a year's worth of wages over there (And several months' worth of wage even for educated people)... It is difficult to find exact and comparable statistics (average vs. median and other differences in the methods...) but based on WorldSalaries.org, the closest corresponding number I can find (median net income) of USA is about $2,300. So the $3.2k isn't all that insignificant amount in Russia.
It also isn't all that easy country for software engineers. They are affordable but can't quite compete with price when it comes to India. They also suffer a lot from the same problems (fake degrees. If you have money, it is easy to get a degree whether you know anything or not. If you don't have money... Well, you probably aren't going to study in any decent school anyways) as India. They need foreign clients both for money and for supervision (The companies that do a lot of international business tend to be rather competent and the corruption is relatively low.) but the negative stereotypes about russians run deep (and it would be outright lie to say that they have no merit. Try drive a foreign car there for a week and count how many times you have to bribe the cops. No, the answer is not going to be "0". And don't say "It's unethical! You should not support that corruption!" if you've never been in that situation. Trying to not pay bribes - IE: The minor fine for whatever reasons they just made up - is quite troublesome and after an hour or three of sitting in the same room with the cop, you are going to just give up... But the IT sector is surprisingly efficient when you look at the general situation.)
Despite all that, I considered Russia to be a rather good outsourcing location. Haven't had to regret that decision.
I can fit more then 80g in my pocket but in Russia you need a brain to fit that much?
Hundreds of rubles stolen from residents
For the upcoming World Cup in Russia.
want to be in a 'Cybergang'! That sounds fucking awesome...
I have three armies on Yakutsk and its my turn to roll.
All I can remember about Yakutsk is that it didn't have a factory complex and only gave you 1 IPC. I guess things have changed there?
It is not entirely true that OS/2 is not supported.
First, eComStation is the current version of OS/2. It comes with support and it has been reported that some financial institutions have purchased it.
Second, IBM still offers a Service Extension and Total Content Ownership (TCO) offering for OS/2. It mainly consists of defect support for large customers with an install base. Fixes and such are not made available to the public, but based on the specific issue and customer. From what I understand it was primarily offered for customers such as financial instutuions. You can read about it here http://www.ibm.com/software/os/warp-withdrawal/services.html
Third, existing OS/2 customers are able to purchase new licenses of the latest code base on a case-by-case basis (again with the understanding that support is limited). While that means that the average computer user can't purchase on OS/2 license directly from IBM anymore, I'm sure large banks would likely fall into the exception category.