MP3 Player Used to Steal ATM Codes

Everyone laughed when the movie Firewall had the crook using an iPod to store bank secrets, but—ha ha ha—it turns out life is imitating art.

This story from the United Kingdom reveals how the scam worked: The crook would attach an MP3 player with recording capabilities to the phone line coming out of the ATM. (The ATMs in question were the freestanding ones like the type you see in convenience stores, not the ones built into walls.) By recording the tones the ATM transmitted to the bank, the crooks could later retrieve the recorder, translate the tones into digits, and reconstruct credit card numbers and expiration dates, which could then easily be turned into phony cards.

Maxwell Parsons managed to abscond with tens of thousands of dollars worth of purchases this way. Meanwhile, banks are careful to note that they have corrected the flaws that made this kind of exploit possible. (The story also notes that this scam nearly ruined the banking system in Malaysia, where it seems to have been pioneered.)

Still, there's a lesson here for the overly cautious: ATM scams are legendary (check out this example of how sophisticated they can be), but stand-alone ATMs are more vulnerable to attack because their connectivity cables are often exposed. If you're the paranoid type, stick with in-wall ATMs, especially if they're located indoors.