In 2014 a criminal gang of hackers moved through the U.K. hacking various Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) for their money, stealing to the equivalent of 1.6 million pounds. In 2012 a similar occurrence happened in the U.S., where hackers stole to the tune of $1 billion. Since the multi-million dollar heists, the ATM’s security has been tightened considerably.
Capturing The Hackers
Arresting those hackers was necessary because there was the down fall in the ATM industry. The complex operation was conducted by the Romanian national police along with the Directorate of Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) after initially being discovered by Russian security firm Kaspersky Lab.
How Hackers Hacked the ATM’s
he Hackers used a piece of malware named “Tyupkin” that assisted the hacker in manipulating the ATM through a series of codes used, finally gaining cash as a result. The Romanian and Moldovan hackers were also responsible for large amounts of damage across the European ATM industry. Since then, Europol’s European cyber crime center has issued special guidelines against these insidious forms of ATM hacking costing millions to the tax-payer in the affected country targeted. The Tyupkin malware, found on 5o ATM’S in the United Kingdom in 2014, provided the hackers with easy access to cash, which was then smuggled into Eastern Europe.