According to a data from Finextra there're almost 70,000 cash machines has been installed across the UK.
Londoners have been warned to exercise caution when using cash machines around the capital after a spate of crimes involving malware-laded ATMs.
Criminals have been hacked into cash machines to install malware that would then allow large amount of money to be stolen without needing to enter a card.
One gang was found to have stolen up to £1.5 million in cash before being caught.
The gang was able to steal so much money by getting inside vulnerable ATMs to gain access and install malware on the systems inside.
This would then allow remote access to the cashpoint and bypass usual withdrawal limits, meaning that "large amounts of cash" could be taken, police said.
The exact malware used by the hackers was not named by police, but it was able to erase itself after executing the theft in order to escape detection.
The news comes after London Police were able to secure the extradition of a Romanian criminal thought to be the leader of the group.
Two other gang members were sentenced in 2014 and 2015 to five and seven years in prison respectively for their roles in hacking ATMs, with two other men remaining at large.
Detective Inspector Matthew Mountford, Head of the London Regional Fraud Team, said: “Working together we will continue to ensure that organised criminal gang members have nowhere to hide”.
The hack is not the first to affect UK cashpoints, many of which often run outdated software systems.
Back in April, police in Lancashire and Cheshire issued alerts over the use of Santander cashpoints after reports of suspicious devices on the bank's ATMs surfaced.
The so-called 'Lebanese Loop' tactic implants a device into the ATM that can swallow cards.
An oppotunist thief watches from nearby as the user types in their pin and memorises the digits, then collects the swallowed card when the frustrate customer leaves.
0 comments: