Laptops

Asustek's Eee PC Put to New and Illegal Use

Hacking Automated Teller Machines made simple

By Bogdan Botezatu, Hardware Editor

23rd of April 2008, 09:37 GMT

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The thieves connected the Eee PC to the ATM terminal

Asustek's tiny Eee PC can hardly be regarded as a fierce tool of hacking, given the fact that it's more of a toy than a fully-fledged computer. Of course, behind

the eye-candy shell, you can still find a computer to give you all the features of modern PCs.

A group of tech-savvy thieves decided that they could take advantage of the notebook's diminutive size in order to cash some extra bucks. If you were thinking about coding new applications, well, they didn't. The Brazilian outlaw group stuffed the miniature computer into an ATM machine, and loaded it with software able to duplicate the users' credit cards, along with other identity information.

Moreover, after rigging the ATM machine with the Eee PC, the gang trashed all the nearby machines in order to direct all the potential customers towards the tampered money machine. The whole scam was recorded by the bank's security cameras placed in the same room with the ATMs.

"When customers perform this kind of transaction, their credentials are stored in the third-party electronics equipment," claims deputy Cl�vis de Souza with the Brazilian police department. "Other identification elements are also stored, then used later when blank magnetics cards are written with the genuine data via cloning software," continued de Souza.

The thieves' plan was given away by an "unfortunate" coincidence. During the weekend, the bank manager found out that the entrance door at the subsidiary was tampered and there was a single working terminal out of five similar installed machines. After watching the security camera tapes, he called the police.

One of the thieves was arrested as he was reporting a car accident at the police station. The law enforcement officers identified the criminals by comparing them against the images recorded by the security cameras. Two men were arrested in Rio Grande do Sul while the third accomplice was taken into custody by the Sao Paulo police.

TAGS:

Asustek | Eee PC | Identity theft | ATM

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