Monday, February 14, 1994

Another ATM "front end" fraud - this time caught An Article in London's Evening Standard of February 11 says that "in one of the most ingenious and innovative high-tech crimes of recent years", culprits planted a fake ATM card reader at a London branch of the Midland bank. In a variation on the theme, the reader was not planted over top of the ATM, but was installed to emulate the door opening devices which most banks use. Users were asked to swipe their cards through the device, and then type in their PINs, to gain admission to the ATM hall. A suspicious customer informed the bank. Some customers had used the device unsuspectingly, but no money was stolen. I see the following developments: - As we know, thieves are well able to reproduce magnetic swipe cards. They no longer need to steal peoples' cards to gain access to their accounts. Any scheme which gives the card number and PIN will do. If this plan really qualified as "ingenious" it would have transmitted the data by radio directly to the thieves' card making machine, and the resulting cards would have been used without delay. - The article was on the front page of a popular newspaper. Although it did contain some excess verbiage (such as the quote above) it also contained all the salient technical details, it described the extent of success and the outcome of the scheme. There is a quote from a bank spokesman and a quote from the police. I've never seen such a complete description of a RISK-worthy story in such a prominent position. Is this a sign that the non-technical public are becoming more aware of the risks of technology, or at least more interested in it ? Jonathan Haruni [jharuni@london.micrognosis.com (Jonathan Haruni) via risks-digest Volume 15, Issue 54] 10:23 # G!

Voice-mail phreaking Hacker attempts to chase cupid away SAN FRANCISCO (UPI, 10 Feb 1994) -- Two bachelors who rented a billboard to find the perfect mate said Thursday they had fallen victim to a computer hacker who sabotaged their voice mail message and made it X-rated. Steeg Anderson said the original recording that informed callers how they may get hold of the men was changed to a "perverted" sexually suggestive message. He said the tampering occurred sometime Wednesday." [United Press newswire via Executive News Service (GO ENS) on CompuServe] The article states that Pacific Bell has been investigating other voice-mail tampering recently as well. Michel E. Kabay, Ph.D., Director of Education, National Computer Security Assn ["Mich Kabay / JINBU Corp." <75300.3232@CompuServe.COM> via risks-digest Volume 15, Issue 54] 8:20 # G!