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Fake ATM Dupes Hackers at Hacker Expo

by Evan Shamoon on August 8, 2009 at 06:48 AM

Don't you love that lovely twist wherein the hunter becomes the hunted?

Such was the case at the recent DefCon hackers' convention in Las Vegas, where a fake ATM was set up in the conference center of the Riviera Hotel Casino in order to steal account information from any gullible hackers who might cross it. Apparently, there were at least a few of them. (As of yet, no reports stating the exact number of victims have emerged.)

It's unclear how long the ATM was there, or whether or not it was an inside job perpetrated by one of the conference attendees. Witnesses told authorities that the machine was placed in such a way as to avoid the gaze of surveillance cameras.

Brian Markus, CEO of Aries Security, first identified the machine as a trap. "In any casino anything that is considered that high value has a camera," Markus told Wired, "and they placed it where there were no [hotel] cameras visibly watching that exact spot where the ATM was."

Shining a flashlight through the machine's smoked glass screen, Markus didn't see the typical camera looking back at him, but instead a PC meant to steal card data.

The best part? The ATM was operating right outside the hotel's security office. Major bonus points for that one. [From: Wired, via Neatorama]

Tags: atm, card skimmer, CardSkimmer, defcon, hack, hacker, identity theft, IdentityTheft, security, top, weird

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