Thieves in Britain hack ATM machines with MP3 players and steal over a quarter of a million dollars

Kind of makes you want to get that new Ipod Nano now doesn’t it?

From the Times Online

Parsons or other gang members would use MP3 portable music players to record data transmitted from free-standing ATM cash machines. The data was then converted to readable numbers using a separate computer programme.

The phone line running from the machine to an ordinary BT white socket was unplugged and a two-way adaptor inserted. The MP3 player was then placed between the ATM machine’s output cable and the phone socket.

The player would record the tones, which resemble the kind of sound emitted by a fax machine.

These were then interpreted using a modem line tap, or MLT, acquired from Canada, or passed through a computer software program bought illicitly in Ukraine.

Parsons, of Gorton, Manchester, was able to exploit his knowledge of credit card security systems to put together credit card numbers and the cards’ expiry dates. The gang used the data to encode and clone a number of credit cards.