Thursday, June 4, 2009

Awesome ATM hack

ATM fraud is not new but what those guys have done is pretty cool (from the technical point of view, of course) :

Cybercriminals are improving a malicious software program that can be installed on ATMs running Microsoft's Windows XP operating system that records sensitive card details.

The malware records the magnetic stripe information on the back of a card as well as the PIN (Personal Identification Number), which would potentially allow criminals to clone the card in order to withdraw cash.

The collected card data, which is encrypted using the DES (Data Encryption Standard) algorithm, can be printed out by the ATM's receipt printer.

The malware is controlled via a GUI that is displayed when a so-called "trigger card" is inserted into the machine by a criminal. The trigger card causes a small window to appear that gives its controller 10 seconds to pick one of 10 command options using the ATM's keypad.

The entire article is here and the analysis of the malware is here.