Brian Krebs 5 December 2012 (krebsonsecurity)
This blog has featured stories about a vast array of impressive, high-tech devices used to steal money from automated teller machines (ATMs). But every so often thieves think up an innovation that makes all of the current ATM skimmers look like child’s play. Case in point: Authorities in Brazil have arrested a man who
allegedly stole more than USD $41,000 from an ATM after swapping its security camera with a portable keyboard that let him hack the cash machine.
The story comes from O Estado de S. Paulo (“The State of São Paulo“), a daily newspaper in Brazil’s largest city. According to the paper, late last month a crook approached an ATM at the Bank of Brazil and somehow removed the security camera from the machine. Apparently, the camera was a USB-based device, because the thief then was able to insert his own USB stick into the slot previously occupied by the camera. As you can imagine, a scene straight out of
Terminator 2 video (blocks some countries - UK at least ensued.
The attacker was then able to connect a folding keyboard to the ATM’s computer and restart the machine. The newspaper story isn’t crystal clear on the role of the USB device — whether it served as a replacement operating system or merely served to connect the keyboard to the machine (
it’s not hard to imagine why this would be so easy, since most ATMs run on some version of Microsoft Windows, which automatically installs drivers for most USB-based input devices).
At any rate, after the thief rebooted the ATM’s computer, he was reportedly able to type the value of the currency notes that he intended to withdraw. According to the story, the thief started by removing all of the R $100 bills, and then moved on to the R $50 notes, and so on.
As clever as this hack was, the crook didn’t get away: The police were alerted by the central bank’s security team, and caught the thief in the process of withdrawing the funds. Brazilian authorities said they believe the man was being coached via phone, but that the guy they apprehended refused to give up the identity of his accomplice. My guess is the one coaching the thief had inside knowledge about how these machines operated, and perhaps even worked at a financial institution at one point.http://bit.ly/SxhnnR
