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Posts with tag citibank

Citibank Employee Wires Someone Else's Money to Himself


With the economy looking shaky (thanks, in part, to bogus computer simulations), and more and more banks being bailed out with federal funds, you might be thinking that the inside of your mattress is the safest place for your cash right now. If not, please allow us to give you a few more reasons to think twice before signing that deposit slip, courtesy of a disconcerting article at Wired about some bad employee behavior at a number of financial institutions.

The cases include the case of Citibank employee Brandon Wyatt, who was recently charged with wiring customer money -- about $380,000 -- to other bank accounts he had access to and then pulling that out as cash out and spending it himself. Meanwhile, two employees of an Indianapolis investment company used private customer information to open 129 separate bogus credit card accounts with a combined $1.4-million credit line. Scary? Yes, but we're still inclined to think our money's safer in a bank than under the bed -- with our luck, we'd leave our retirement savings on the curb after some spring cleaning. [From: Wired Threat Level]

Citibank/7-Eleven ATMs Infiltrated, PINs Stolen

Citibank ATMs Infiltrated, PINs StolenSo you follow your bank's advice to the letter when it comes to ATM security: You don't let someone snoop over your shoulder why you're using it, you don't stand there to count your cash immediately after withdrawal, and, most importantly, you've chosen a PIN that isn't "1234."

Good for you, you're doing your part. Sadly, though, it seems that Citibank, and two companies that operate thousands of its ATMs, are not doing their's. Somehow hackers have found a way to infiltrate those ATMs and steal the PIN numbers of anyone who used them.

The automatic tellers affected are the Citi-branded ones found at 7-Eleven stores. These machines -- of which there are 5,700 in total -- are operated by Cardtronics Inc. and Fiserv Inc. The machines themselves were not affected, but it seems that both companies failed to encrypt PINs that were transmitted from the ATM to their central computers, so once the hackers were able to access those central servers, they were able to grab numbers without any hassle.

It's unclear just how they gained access to those supposedly secure central computers or how many bank accounts were compromised, but Citibank is taking steps to send new debit cards to those whose PINs, regardless of how complex, were stolen. Maybe it's time for you to ask your bank just how secure their ATM interactions are. [Source: AP]

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