Cybersecurity
‘ATM Jackpotting’ Thieves Arrive in U.S., Meet Hardier Defenses
- Two men arrested for alleged first attack in Colorado
- Physical security of ATMs much stronger in U.S., experts say
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On a chilly October night in a Denver suburb, two men entered a small credit union’s after-hours vestibule, pried open the ATM and took out the hard drive, then reconfigured the machine to spit out $24,000.
It was possibly the first case of “ATM jackpotting” in the U.S., a crime in which technology is manipulated to get the machine to dispense all the money it has. The two men, later identified as Venezuelan nationals, went on to hit other ATMs. Their faces or their license plate were captured on surveillance footage in each case, and they were eventually busted smoking pot in a rental van parked on a Wyoming mountain pass, according to a filed in U.S. District Court in Colorado.