Lifespan of ATM scam at Defcon: pathetic
From ComputerWorld:As the conference was kicking off a few days ago, attendees noticed that at ATM placed in the Riviera Hotel, which plays host to the annual event, didn't quite look right, according to a senior conference organizer who identified himself only as Priest. "They looked at the screen where there would normally be a camera," he said. "It was a little bit too dark, so someone shined a flashlight in there and there was a PC."
The ATM looked like a working system, but when people would put their cards in the machine, it would scan their card information and record the PIN numbers they entered. He didn't know how long the ATM had been at the Riviera.
Conference organizers notified local law enforcement who hauled away the machine on "Thursday or Friday," said Priest, who said he works as a "civil servant" in his day job.
....
The criminals probably didn't realize that they were installing their ATM in a hotel that was soon going to be flooded with more than 8,000 security professionals, he added.
I.e., didn't do their homework. This sort of thing is public information.They were smart enough to place the machine in one of the few spots in the hotel where there was no security camera to catch them, Priest said. "It was literally right next to the hotel security entrance."
But did do a detailed analysis of the terrain.
[Aside: have finally completed Julius Caesar's military history works in translation (The Conquest of Gaul and The Civil War, complete with not-so-awesome ghostwritten sections), and have started on Sallustius Crispus's Sallust's two complete monographs.
Julius Caesar includes so much commentary on favorable versus unfavorable terrain [including a few places where such almost caused terminal defeat for Caesar] that he emphasizes it more that just about every other writer I've read - including Sun Tzu's Art of War.
Yes, next reading in that era of Roman history will have to be from the political opposition. Cicero keeps coming up in the modern commentary.]
The ATM looked like a working system, but when people would put their cards in the machine, it would scan their card information and record the PIN numbers they entered. He didn't know how long the ATM had been at the Riviera.
Conference organizers notified local law enforcement who hauled away the machine on "Thursday or Friday," said Priest, who said he works as a "civil servant" in his day job.
....
The criminals probably didn't realize that they were installing their ATM in a hotel that was soon going to be flooded with more than 8,000 security professionals, he added.
I.e., didn't do their homework. This sort of thing is public information.They were smart enough to place the machine in one of the few spots in the hotel where there was no security camera to catch them, Priest said. "It was literally right next to the hotel security entrance."
But did do a detailed analysis of the terrain.
[Aside: have finally completed Julius Caesar's military history works in translation (The Conquest of Gaul and The Civil War, complete with not-so-awesome ghostwritten sections), and have started on Sallustius Crispus's Sallust's two complete monographs.
Julius Caesar includes so much commentary on favorable versus unfavorable terrain [including a few places where such almost caused terminal defeat for Caesar] that he emphasizes it more that just about every other writer I've read - including Sun Tzu's Art of War.
Yes, next reading in that era of Roman history will have to be from the political opposition. Cicero keeps coming up in the modern commentary.]