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Criminals Use 3D-Printed Skimming Devices On Sydney ATMs
AlbanX writes "A gang of suspected Romanian criminals is using 3D printers and computer-aided design (CAD) to manufacture 'sophisticated' ATM skimming devices to fleece Sydney residents. One Romanian national has been charged by NSW Police. The state police found one gang that had allegedly targeted 15 ATMs across metropolitan Sydney, affecting tens of thousands of people and nabbing around $100,000."
I hope the police gets'em.
I would have liked them to consider the damage they're doing to the rest of us hard working and law abiding people in the eyes of the rest of the world..
not sure how this affected tens of thousands of people... seems like a stretch to me... it affected 5 bank employees and 1 insurance company...
It's about time that US banks caught up with the rest of the world and put chips on all their cards, then we can finally get rid of the magstripes.
While chip&pin has it's security flaws it's way better than the 20 year old magnetic stripe system, in Australia and most of Europe the only reason they still put the stripes on cards is because the cards have to work when people travel to the US.
It's been at least a year since I've seen a reader without chip support in Australia and the only time the magstrip is used is when the chip or contactless read fails.
Sometimes it's funny how ATMs I see outside of my country (Spain) don't seem to have the security systems that they were forced to use here for problems like the one described in the article.
I also find foreign paper currency to be unsafe, ID documents too easy to forge and store security to be amazingly weak.
Sometimes I wish I lived in one of those countries where all that security isn't needed.
I read stories like this that try to diss the use of "3D Printers" as if somehow banning the use of those devices is somehow going to stop criminals from engaging in acts like this. What utter nonsense.
How many other stories about ATM skimmers emphasized any of the tools used to make the devices used to make their devices? Why such a strong emphasis on the 3D printing technology? It sounds like a cool buzz word, but means absolutely nothing other than an attempt to make something new sound frightening because the reporters and police officers involved don't have a clue about how the technology works.... therefore it must be some kind of dark magic that must be brought before the Inquisition and those involved banished to Hell (or some equivalent).
While I don't mind seeing stories like this on Slashdot as it does talk about emerging technologies and their impact upon society as a whole, it still turns my stomach to see such awful reporting overemphasizing the manufacturing technology (it was the lead paragraph) instead of describing what people were doing first. Had the technology being used been mentioned much further into the article, I think it would have been much more appropriate.
That they used 3D printing device, is hardly interesting news. That’s just more 3D printing hype. What I find fascinating with this story, is that card skimming at ATM still works, today, in 2013.
It’s clearly a failure to implement the most basic security and authentication features, which are widely available today. How can it be that, today, one can still do any kind of transaction with only a card number and a pin – if a pin is needed at all (eg. For online transactions).
They (the banks and/or credit card companies) try a lot of fancy things like nice holograms on ATM machines or abstruse authentication methods that fail to understand that a simple password is about as safe as the card number itself. This PIN skimming thing is the proof of that.
It’s slowly getting better, with unique number generators for validation or unique numbers sent through SMS. But I hardly believe these solutions are optimal for the users. Perhaps this explains why their implementation is so amazing slow – although I believe it still better to have those as none at all.
As you have pointed out, European 'Chip-and-PIN' Cash-Card Security have already been cracked by criminals.
And fair enough, generally cards with chips are still more secure than their magnetic counterparts.
What I am more disturbed about is, from the point of the consumer, it appears that in Europe at least the supposed security of the chip and pin system have been (ab)used by banks to deny refunds to their defrauded clients.
From the POV of the consumer, I would not favor the use of this newer, more secure system if it shifts the burden of fraud on me with the excuse that "it's unhackable, you must have given them your PIN".
Just FYI: Romanians are people who live in Romania, a poor country in eastern Europe.
Sydney is a city in Australia, a country and a continent, and also an island (like Alaska) at south of China.
HTH.
in an elephant's world.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Why not use the camera tech already in the ATM to detect when the ATM is being screwed with, and automatically shut it down, and flag someone to come out and FIX it.
If the assholes never make money this way, they'll stop trying to do it. This is simply a novel security hole that needs to be plugged. OR... make it so if you pull the cover off an ATM without properly disarming it (which you could only do if you were an authorized maintenance person) it shocks the living fuck out of you.
That might also dissuade crooks... speaking of which, I've always kind of wondered, while we're on the topic, you know how banks put those dye things into bags of money so when the crooks leave the bank, they rupture and spray dye all over the cash (marking it) and hopefully the crooks too? Why not use a Thermite grenade instead? Give the bastards something more to think about than, "what are you gonna do with YOUR share of the loot, Lou?"
How long will it take for someone to suggest giving everyone an account linked to their biometric info, and just eliminate cash outright? People may scream about their privacy, but as we've seen, people are perfectly willing to sacrifice privacy for convenience, just as they trade liberty for "security" (which is a fool's bargain if ever there were one, since once the state takes all necessary measures to protect you from the "terrorists", who the hell protects you from the government?
As for me, I stopped using ATM's a long time ago. I take what I need from the INSIDE of the bank each month in cash, and secret it at home. It's never enough to worry excessively about a break-in, (we're not talking thousands, or tens of thousands, more like a few hundred,) and just use THAT as my ATM. No fees, no PIN, no skimming or scamming or any of that other nonsense... ATM's suck anyway, even without all the different ways you can or DO get robbed using them, so why do it?
But I digress. Your move, naysayers.
Use a 3D printer to print a blade/saw to cut the criminals hands off
Too brutal? Smarter might be special laws for foreigners coming for the open season on consumers and the slap on the wrist if they are caught.
More appropriate to have it make something t o make their stay at the countryclub jail more enjoyable , then???
Scientology!
interesting geographic lesson there, chucklehead
Whenever someone is non-Anglo saxon and does something wrong we mention their race to assert our moral superiority over them.
ZOMG!!!
Printed guns AND now fraud devices !!
These 3d printer tings needs to be banned immediately.
Newsflash
Criminals use 2D printers to create 'sophisticated' forged documents. Ban evil 2D printers!!!
WTFC's? Criminals have used lathes, presses, drills, hammers, laptops, PC's, all sorts of tools in the past! So, they use another tool, in this case the dastardly 3D Printer! OOOHH! Who really cares???
Some authors at /. absolutely cream themselves at the mere mention of a 3D Printer. Get over it already. They've been around awhile. Why the recent interest? Yeah, what I thought, a corporate sales scheme has infiltrated /. once again.
3D Printer! 3D Printer! 3D Printer! 3D Printer! 3D Printer! There... hope I just made your day.
Whatever it takes to make 3D printing illegal.
You do realize it's about making 3D printing illegal, right? That Guangdong gravy train must go on.
i thought debit cards in Australia have microchips? or only cards issued in Europe?
ATMs ought to display a picture of what they are 'supposed' to look like. Might help fight the assholes with the skimmers.
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