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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.
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
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!
fuckin software guys are underpaid everywhere
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
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.
OK, but what if you actually LIVED in Russia and weren't just visiting?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
I've used ATMs all over the Soviet Union, from the metropolises like Moscow and Almaty to provincial capitals hit hard by job loss and economic migration away. I've never experienced theft of my bank card details. The crime carried out in Yakutsk is not a widespread problem in Russia. To be honest, I'd be more worried using my card in the US when stories keep coming out like those gas pumps that had been tampered with, though again that's probably the media just blowing it out of proportion.
He probably just forgot to type the word "former" by accident, as he also mentioned Almaty, which afaik is a city in Kazakhstan (part of the former Sovient Union).
Speaking as local, I'm really surprised to read this comment. For more than three years of using credit card I've never experienced any problems with it. None of my friends did too. And not only in Moscow, but in several other cities too. I do trust my bank and it's security measures, and all cases of credit card info theft I know of happened in US or Europe.
Now, for example, one thing I am scared of is US airport security. And how would it look if I'd said something like that: "It's a service guaranteed to humiliate you in every possible way. Why would I use it, *ESPECIALLY* if I was local?"
Absence of proof != proof of absence.