How crooks fake an ATM and steal your money

There is no argument in the fact that technology has advanced and has come a long way. While cellphones and all kinds of other modern technology have continued to become more and more widespread, so has the crime that is associated with the use of modern technology. In other words, the criminals who work in the black market and use frauds as ways to gain riches, have taken to advanced modern technology for their illegal criminal activity.

According to MSNBC, "When it comes to new and creative ways of pilfering personal financial data, ATM crime is enjoying something of a renaissance here in the U.S. In the past year alone, devices like skimmers have been found on point-of-sale machines, inside gas pumps, on ticket vending machines, and affixed to ATMs throughout Northern California and the rest of the country. In some cases, thieves have successfully made off with tens of thousands in cash and/or personal card data before anyone was the wiser."

What I would like to discuss in today's blog is how cautious everyone - even a crook - has to be when it comes to frauds of any kind. While there are criminals out there that are hoping to trick the money out of you by swiping fake credit cards or using skimmers on ATM machines, there are other swindlers that are tricking these criminals into buying components for skimmers that don't actually work at all.

Here's another explanation: In the criminal world, it is "every-crook-for-himself" because well, thieving isn't easy. The former Washington Post staff writer who now runs Krebs on Security, Brian Krebs says, "As with everything in the criminal underworld, the biggest issue is not getting ripped off." In fact, during the past two years, "Krebs discovered one overarching trend while reporting on the myriad forms of skimmers for his site: Obtaining real, working components -- without getting swindled yourself -- is friggin' hard." Now what kind of world are we living? We are worried that criminals might be swindling us, while the criminals are worried about being swindled by other criminals. Does this even make any sense? No wonder the author of the article quotes this roundabout cycle as, "the food chain you learned about in 7th-grade bio."

The risk of having one's personal data stolen is relatively low compared to the risk of the person doing the swindling, so there really is nothing to be worried about. Although, due to the eye-catching headline, of course there will be people who unnecessarily panic and become extra - if not already - more cautious. Bottom line is, the most interesting item of this article was the roundabout cycle of people tricking others and the person that is tricking others is being tricked as well. Honestly, everyone should just stray from conducting acts of frauds. You could get swindled before you swindle others. Apparently, this is the how the criminal underworld operates. It's that complicated.

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Article and Photo from:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40496218/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/