05 April, 2006

BE CAREFUL AT ATMs

A team of organized criminals are installing equipment on legitimate bank ATM's in at least 2 regions to steal both the ATM card number and the PIN. The team sits nearby in a car receiving the information transmitted wirelessly over weekends and evenings from equipment they install on the front of the ATM (see photos). If you see an attachment like this, do not use the ATM and report it immediately to the bank using the phone on the front of the ATM.

The equipment used to capture your ATM card number and PIN are cleverly disguised to look like normal ATM equipment. A "skimmer" is mounted to the front of the normal ATM card slot that reads the ATM card number and transmits it to the criminals sitting in a nearby car.

At the same time, a wireless camera is disguised to look like a leaflet holder and is mounted in a position to view ATM PIN entries.

The thieves copy the cards and use the PIN numbers to withdraw thousands from many accounts in a very short time directly from the bank ATM.





Equipment being installed on front of existing bank card slot.





The equipment as it appears installed over the normal ATM bank slot.





The PIN reading camera being installed on the ATM is housed in an innocent looking leaflet enclosure.





The camera shown installed and ready to capture PIN's by looking down on the keypad as you enter your PIN



Tell more people


(Source: Email Forward in Dubai, 4/4/06)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

As far as I know, ATM’s machines are meant to have camera’s mounted facing all users; by international law. I could be wrong, but I think this email is hype and not for real. As installing this would be pretty hard under any bank security system even if these cameras weren’t installed.

grapeshisha said...

This was used about 5 years ago to scam people in Europe and the US. Maybe they are trying it again, or maybe, the email is dated. But it is best to beware.

Anonymous said...

They caught a couple of Bulgarian who allegedly were involved in such a scam in Bahrain a few weeks ago and their story was in the paper, however no follow-up to the case was posted in the local press since. They did use some equipment to do their scam, but I'm not sure if that equipment were as sophisticated as those shown in these pictures.

Thanks for bringing this to our notice. I've copied it on my blog, and hope you don't mind.

Krishna said...

I have heard personally that such an incident as described has occured in dubai, done by a taiwanise gang, i believe last year. Ofcourse all were arrested and prompty found gulity. The used the names and numbers in mainly southeast asia.

B.D. said...

installing this would be pretty hard under any bank security system

Quoting anonymous above, the photos show just how easy it is to install the illegal equipment. What would be hard is to manufacture the card reader attachment to perfectly fit over the card slot. But professionals would presumably have the time and wherewithall to do that. I for one will start to look more closely at the ATMs I use.

Emaratyy said...

I am starting this business, Any intrested partners ?

nzm said...

It's in the news in New Zealand

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