Society of Payment Security Professionals - Payment Security Blog

MP3 Player to Record ATM Transactions

Times Online (UK) has an article about a fraudster who used an MP3 player between the ATM and the phone line to record, and then later decode, credit card informaiton being sent to the bank.

The phone line running from the machine to an ordinary BT white socket was unplugged and a two-way adaptor inserted. The MP3 player was then placed between the ATM machine’s output cable and the phone socket.

The player would record the tones, which resemble the kind of sound emitted by a fax machine.

These were then interpreted using a modem line tap, or MLT, acquired from Canada, or passed through a computer software program bought illicitly in Ukraine.