Hackers Devise Wireless Methods for Stealing ATM Users’ PINs. Clearly Hackers are moving with the future tech.

Pilfering the personal identification numbers of financial accounts, a potential jackpot for hackers, is tougher to pull off thanks to data encryption and other security technologies. Yet the arms race continues: Hackers are devising more creative methods to intercept PINs at ATMs, the clearest path to instant cash. “It just blows you away how sophisticated these folks are in thinking this stuff up,” says Bryan Sartin, director of the team at Verizon Communications (VZ) that investigates data breaches.

Schemes to steal PINs from ATMs and similar machines now include Hollywood-style corporate espionage, Sartin says. Crooks have long fitted ATMs and gas pumps with phony number pads and card readers to retrieve debit card PIN data. That was a risky approach, because they had to set up the equipment and then come back to remove it without getting caught. Now, with banks using wireless Internet connections to monitor ATM cash flow and update software, hackers can filch PINs remotely, according to a Verizon report. Fraudsters are also taking an Ocean’s Eleven approach—getting jobs with technical-support companies that give them access to ATMs, then installing malware that can transmit PIN data to an e-mail address or a phone.

A great article from BusinessWeek. Read the rest of the article here.