Hi-tech cash machine hacker jailed in the UK

A gang of carders has been dismantled in Britain with its leader, Maxwell Parsons, receiving a jail sentence of 32 month from a UK court. The man specialised in using portable MP3 players to tap into the ATMs’ communications, copying data that was transmitted from the cash machine to the bank network via ordinary telephone lines. This particular modus operandi is believed to have been unique in Britain, although much more common in South-East Asia. Since Mr Parsons’ arrest, the security flaw that allowed him to steal private data has been fixed.

Maxwell Parsons, 41, is thought to have gained hacking skills from a friend who was enrolled at Cambridge University. He was based in the north of England and searched for cash machines in the Greater Manchester area to carry out the first step of his scam. The ATMs had to be freestanding so that the phone line going from the machine to the telephone socket could be disconnected. An MP3 player would then be plugged into the cable between the ATM and socket and left to collect data. The usual target for Parsons were ATMs in bars, bowling alleys and other entertainment venues that had such machines installed for use of their clients. A customer using the cash machine would have no idea that all the card details used in a transaction would then be recorded as a sequence of tones on the player. Mr Parsons could then collect it and use special software to decode collected data for use in carding operations.

Total damage from this hi-tech fraud operation is though to be £200,000, although the police could only track £14,000 of that back to Mr Parsons. The man himself was apprehended totally by chance, when a car he was travelling in was pulled over for performing an illegal U-turn in London. During a search he was found to be carrying a counterfeit bankcard, which gave the police the opportunity to search his house in Manchester. Technical equipment and 26 other cards were then recovered, including 18 that were encoded with data stolen via his MP3 operation. Maxwell Parsons was subsequently charged and eventually pleaded guilty to offences of intercepting a telecommunication transmission and deception.