ATMskimmer
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ICYMI: An accidental invention could create clean water
Today on In Case You Missed It: Some of the greatest inventions of our modern age, from the pacemaker to super glue, got their start as accidental discoveries. That's why we're focusing today's show on a find by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, where scientists meant to make magnetic nanowires but created a kind of carbon nanorod instead. It might prove to be a wonderful mistake, since studying the nanorods shows they can harvest, hold and evaporate liquid from their fibers. The hope is that the material could create cheap and low-energy water purification systems, changing the game for clean water delivery. We also showed you both the YouTube video where a ATM skimmer seller demonstrates how easy it is to scam money from those machines, and also a video of this dancing robot, because. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Security researchers find new wafer-thin ATM card skimmers in use
ATM card skimming is hardly a new activity, and neither are card skimmers that continue to get smaller and more discreet. As Brian Krebs of the Krebs on Security blog reports, though, a new development out of Europe has now crossed a key, and potentially troublesome threshold. The European ATM Security Team (otherwise known as EAST) has discovered a new type of wafer-thin card skimmer in use in at least one unnamed European country that's small enough to fit directly in the ATM's card slot -- that's as opposed to most current skimmers that can be well-disguised but generally sit on top of the card slot. As you can imagine, that makes it considerably more difficult to spot for even the most attentive ATM users, but Krebs notes that the skimmer still requires a secondary device like a camera or keypad overlay to record a person entering their PIN.
Criminals constructing ATM skimmers from DAPs
A recent article from Brian Krebs highlights a new trend in ATM skimmers: by using parts from cut-rate audio players and spy cams, criminals are able to construct something called an audio skimmer that records the data from the magnetic strip for later playback. Also included in the device is a miniature spy cam, which captures the user's PIN. The basic methodology behind the device is nothing new (for instance, it could be found in an issue of Phrack dating back to 1992) although the use of DAPs means that the whole thing is a lot more elegant than it was in the days of the portable cassette recorder. According to a recent report by the European ATM Security Team (EAST), devices of this type have been found in five countries, two of them "major ATM deployers" (with 40,000 active ATMs or more). Please guys, don't get any ideas. PR from EAST after the break.
ATM skimmers: now with SMS notification built right in
Aw, how convenient! Now, when you purchase your next ATM skimmer, you don't even have to risk being arrested when you wander out to retrieve it. For those outside of the know, an ATM skimmer sits on credit / debit card machines and swipes information as unsuspecting civilians pass their cards through. In the days of old, scammers would have to physically retrieve the skimmer in order to acquire all that precious information; now, models with built-in SMS notification are becoming available, meaning that numbers, expiration dates and that easy-to-forget three digit code on the back can be shot out instantly after the data is snatched. Word on the street has these devices going for $8,500 a pop, and they can dish out around 2,000 texts. Just another zany hack to be aware of in the wide world of ATM shenanigans.[Via Hack-A-Day]
