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Cybergang Compromises Every ATM In Russian City

Posted by timothy on from the equal-opportunity dept.

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."

9 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. How could it be that easy? by yog · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.

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    it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
    1. Re:How could it be that easy? by AvitarX · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

      Considering they were caught before they could do anything I would say it's a fair assumption.

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  2. Cybergangs? by deadhammer · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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"?

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    I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
  3. This needs to happen more often by dingen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Maybe then the world will learn not to run Windows on these kind of devices.

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    Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
    1. Re:This needs to happen more often by Walter+White · · Score: 5, Insightful

      My roots as an MS hater go back to DOS long before Windows. And I disagree with your claim.

      Given access from by the former head of IT, it would be feasible to engineer a compromise for any OS. If they had physical access, anything is possible. Perhaps they even had access to the dev environment which was used to program the machines.

  4. Evident Risk joke by Progman3K · · Score: 3, Funny

    about Yakutsk usually being easy to protect

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    I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
  5. $3200????????? by Ryanrule · · Score: 4, Informative

    fuckin software guys are underpaid everywhere

  6. We have a similar gang of fraudsters in US by Ada_Rules · · Score: 3, Interesting
    They've got ATMs all over the place. They run this Ponzi scheme where people give them money and then they loan out almost all of it to other people. Eventually this money gets re-deposited and again they loan out almost all of it. This cycle continues until the total amount of money that they own to depositors is substantially larger than the actual money they can ever get their hands on. They try to re-coup this by charging crazy fees on their ATMs and monthly fees for getting to play in the scheme but in the end like all Ponzi schemes, this one crashed.

    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.

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    --- Liberty in our Lifetime
  7. Re:Use Russian ATMs? Really? by CRCulver · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.