‘Jackpotting’ targets U.S. ATMs to make them dispense cash

Two men have been arrested and another remains on the run, after they were indicted on January 30, 2018 for trying to “jackpot” an ATM, so the machine would give out cash.

ATM manufacturers Diebold Nixdorf and NCR Corp. have said these attacks have occurred in the U.S., but did not detail whom they have targeted and how much money was dispensed.

ATM jackpotting, also known as “logical attacks,” simply means that cyber thieves physically install malware onto ATMs, giving them control over how much money gets dispensed at any given time.

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Hacker infected pumps at gas stations in Russia

Russian authorities discovered a fraudulent scheme involving dozens of gas station employees, who installed malicious software programs on electronic gas pumps, to cheat customers. The scam skimmed 3 to 7 percent of every gallon sold into a separate tank, as it was being pumped. Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) arrested hacker Denis Zayev in Stavropol, Russia.

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Spectre and Meltdown processor security flaws – explained

Meltdown and Spectre are the names of two serious security flaws that have recently been found within computer processors. They could allow hackers to steal sensitive data without the user knowing, one of them affecting computer chips made as far back as 1995.

Practically every computing device may be affected by Spectre. All modern processors, including those made by Intel, AMD and ARM, may be exposed.

Software vendors, including Microsoft, Apple and Google, are releasing software patches to fix the flaws. Such fixes typically mitigate the flaws by altering or disabling the use of speculative execution and cashing, causing performance degradation.

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