Cybercriminals Use Text Messages to Empty ATM Cash

SMS texts are being used by cyber criminals to withdraw cash from ATMs infected with malwareReuters

Cybercriminals are able to withdraw cash from ATMs "across the world" by simply texting an SMS message to a compromised cash machine, according to a new report.

The discovery was made by security firm Symantec which warns that such attacks are likely to become even more prevalent as support for Windows XP - run on 95% of ATMs worldwide - endsnext month.

Symantec has previously reported on a type of malware known as Ploutus used by cybercriminals to access ATMs using an external keyboard.

The latest attacks stem from a variant of this malware identified as Backdoor.Ploutus.B. Once an ATM is infected by this type of Ploutus, cyber criminals are able to simply send a text message to the machine and it will dispense cash.

According to the report, this technique is being used in "a number of places across the world at this time", though Symantec has informed IBTimes UK the majority of infections are currently in South America. Exact numbers are yet to be confirmed.

Fast and convenient

In order to pull off the cyberattack, criminals first need to gain remote control access to an ATM by connecting a mobile phone to the inside of an ATM. This can apparently be achieved multiple ways, though a technique known as 'USB tethering' is commonly used. It creates a shared Internet connection between the phone and the ATM.

How cyber criminals use an SMS message to withdraw cash from an ATM

"After the mobile phone is connected to the ATM and set up is completed, the criminals can send specific SMS command messages to the phone attached inside the ATM," said Daniel Regalado, a malware analyst at Symantec.

"When the phone detects a new message under the required format, the mobile device will convert the message into a network packet and will forward it to the ATM through the USB cable."

Regalado believes using SMS messages to control the ATM is the most convenient method for cybercriminals to control an infected machine.

"The master criminal and money mule can synchronise their actions so that the money is issued just as the money mule pretends to withdraw cash or is walking past the ATM," Regalado said.

Edith Macefield: The 84-Year-Old Who Refused a Million Dollars and Forced a Shopping Mall to Build Around Her House

Have you heard of Edith Macefield? This old lady turned down a million dollar offer to sell her home to make way for a shopping mall in Seattle, Washington. Without Edith’s land, the developer had to alter the building’s plan so that it would meander around the small, two-story house. At 84 years old, Edith become a folk hero. And if you think her house looks familiar, it’s probably because it looks amazingly similar to (and could be the inspiration for) the famous flying house in Pixar’s animated film UP.

The story of Edith Macefield reached the public for the first time in 2006, when she refused to relocate and make way for a large shopping mall in the Ballard neighborhood in Seattle. Over the decades, Edith had the chance to see drastic changes taking place in her little neighborhood. Gentrification enabled the replacement of old houses with boutique shops and condos, and eventually these commercial structures closed in on her house. Developers offered her no less than a million dollars to move—an offer which she famously refused. The shopping mall was eventually built, but it had to be modified so as not to disturb Edith’s property.
Related:9-Year-Old Boy Raises $3,000 To Save Detroit’s Parks by Selling Lemonade!
Edith passed away in 2008 at the age of 87, but she still managed to surprise everyone one last time. She had willed her home to Barry Martin, the construction chief at the adjacent building site, with whom she formed an unlikely friendship. Barry looked after her and drove her to the hospital after she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Since Edith’s death, the house has been remodeled—its walls fixed and windows replaced. Plans are in the works to eventually raise the house and create a public square below, in memory of Edith’s bravery and integrity.

Malaysia flight kidnap by alien!!!???

Missing Malaysia Airlines flight: Eight CONSPIRACY theories on what's happened to the missing plane

As the search for missing Malaysia Airline flight MH370 enters its fifth day,  has sparked a number of conspiracy theories.

From alien abduction and a hidden weapon at work, to a military take out and pilot suicide, the theories keep flowing over the internet.

The Boeing 777 jetliner vanished five days ago with 239 people on board.

The flight left Kuala Lumpur at 4.41pm GMT bound for Beijing, but less than 50 minutes later it lost communication with air traffic control.

It veered off over the South China Sea and headed west for the next hour and 10 minutes, travelling over Malaysia and Thailand.

Its last tracked position on radar recorded the flight about 200 miles off course over the Malacca Strait, near the island of Pulau Perak.

At least 10 countries, including Vietnam and China, are taking part in the search, which involves 40 ships and 34 aircraft.

Deputy Transport Minister Pham Quy Tieu, who heads the Vietnam search, said: "We still have plans to search with a few flights today, while other activities are suspended."

He added that searches by ships were being suspended.

Here are some popular conspiracy theories:

1. Alien abduction

Social media users have jumped on the possibility of extraterrestial life having something to do with the missing plane.

One user wrote: "After an extensive conversation with my father & his partner, we have come to the conclusion that the only explanation is #aliens mh370."

Another added: "I secretly believe that plane is abducted by aliens.. I know I’m not the only one.."

And one user even said there were only two possibilities for its disappearance, aliens or a DB Cooper-style heist.

He wrote: "This malaysian airlines flight has the potential to be either the greatest heist since DB Cooper, or alien abduction. I vote aliens."

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Parents reportedly save premature baby’s life by keeping him in homemade incubator

On the advice of a doctor, a premature baby boy’s life was saved after his parents incubated him inside a polystyrene icebox for five months, Cover Asia Press reported.

In October 2013, Mithilesh Chauhan was born two months premature at Alliance Hospital in Mumbai, India.  At birth, he reportedly weighed just 3 pounds 3 ounces and was in need of constant monitoring as he was prone to infections.

However, Mithilesh’s parents, Aruna and Ramseh Chauhan, said they could not afford to keep their son in the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU).  They claim that they initially paid for their son’s hospital stay by borrowing money from relatives, but they soon ran out of people to ask for help.  The new parents then tried reaching out to other government-run hospitals, but all the ICU waiting lists were reportedly too long.

Knowing the baby would have to be discharged soon, the Chauhans claimed that doctors at Alliance Hospital suggested a cheap – and unconventional – alternative.

"One doctor told us that if we couldn't afford to keep our baby in hospital we should try a Thermocol icebox with holes for ventilation and a 60-watt bulb to provide the right amount of warmth," Aruna Chauhan, 34, told Cover Asia Press. "He advised it was better than nothing and might save our baby. My husband bought the box from a nearby fish market and cut holes in it."

After 20 days in the ICU, Mithilesh was reportedly released from the hospital – leaving the icebox as the Chauhan’s only option.  Aruna and Ramseh claimed they would take him out every two hours to take his temperature.

"It was awful," Aruna told Cover Asia Press. "We had no idea if it was the right thing to do, but we had to try something. We were terrified if we did nothing he'd die, but we were also aware that what we were doing wasn't exactly safe either. It was a very distressing time."

Mithilesh survived after allegedly spending five months in the icebox – but he remained severely underweight.  He is now reportedly receiving 24-hour medical care at the Wadia Hospital for Children, who heard about his condition and offered to treat him for free.

GTA Online: Video Shows Real Life Car Jacking as Seen in GTA 5, Not Parody

While YouTube has seen several amusing videos of actors trying to serve up dramatic examples of GTA or Grand Theft Auto in real life, very few of those attempts are as real as the one featured.

A YouTuber has picked up a video of a man in Colorado hijacking cars recklessly like players would on Rockstar's ultra successful GTA 5 and its multiplayer mode, GTA Online.

Adding to the fun, the YouTuber in question has added some amusing audio to the background and has dubbed the voice of GTA 5's Trevor over the one of the reckless driver.

Have a look at the video below. Also aded are the names of cars on the bottom right corner and a change in music when you step in and out of them. 

What is amazing is that the car-jacker in the video has performed acts that are seldom seen outside a GTA game. This includes the hijack-and-drive-off-road move that many of us have grown up performing on GTA games.

And then comes stopping multiple times on a freeway to hijack new cars. However, the best and most authentic GTA-style act happens to be hijacking a car and then using it to drive down the wrong side of the road.

GTA 5 Getting Heists in Next 1.12 Update?

In other news, a new report has it that the next title update of GTA 5 will contain Heists for GTA Online. It indicates that the recently launched 1.11 update brings in many of the required files for online heists, apart from the ability to purchase multiple apartments and even the luxurious mansions.

The update might also bring in new horns, gestures, green and purple smoke, a host of new cars and actions, including Knuckle Crunch, Air Thrusting, and Doc.

Ex-Microsoft employee charged with leaking trade secrets to blogger

REUTERS - A former employee of Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) is facing criminal charges after he allegedly passed trade secrets to a blogger in France, U.S. court documents showed.

Russian national Alex Kibkalo, a former Microsoft employee in Lebanon and Russia, admitted to Microsoft investigators that he provided confidential company documents and information to the blogger, documents from a Seattle federal court showed.

The blogger, who was not identified, was known to those in the Microsoft blogging community for posting screenshots of pre-release version of the Windows Operating System. The blogger hid his identity stating falsely that he was from Quebec, according to the documents.

An internal investigation by Microsoft revealed unauthorized transmissions of proprietary and confidential trade secrets, according to the court documents. An email from Kibkalo was found within the blogger's Hotmail account, establishing that he shared confidential data.

"We take protection of our intellectual property very seriously, including cooperating with law-enforcement agencies who are investigating potential criminal actions by our employees or others," a Microsoft spokesman said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

A lawyer representing Kibkalo could not be reached for comment immediately outside regular U.S. business hours.

The court documents said during interviews, the blogger admitted to posting information on Twitter and his websites and selling Windows Server activation keys on eBay.

According to Microsoft's investigation, in July and August 2012, Kibkalo uploaded proprietary software including pre-release software updates of Windows 8 RT and ARM devices, as well as the Microsoft Activation Server Software Development Kit (SDK) to a computer in Washington and subsequently to his personal Windows Live SkyDrive account.

Microsoft product teams use the SDK in customizing their product code to ensure proper validation in the product key activation process.

Kibkalo, who worked with Microsoft for seven years, received a poor performance review in 2012 and threatened to resign if the review was not amended, the documents showed.

According to an FBI agent who was part of the investigation, Kibkalo has relocated to Russia and based on a LinkedIn account, he is currently working for another U.S.-based technology company with offices in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The case is in USA v. Kibkalo, Case No 2:14-mj-00114-MAT, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle.

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Massive Roadblock, Warrantless Searches in Maryland

Massive Roadblock, Warrantless Searches in Maryland

What never got reported was Tuesday's massive highway roadblock and car to car searches by armed law enforcement officers in Maryland. Were there warrants for these searches? No. Was there reasonable cause to stopevery commuter at 10a.m. on a Tuesday morning? No.

"When I saw a wall of police officers with automatic weapons approaching our cars, it was apparent that something serious was taking place," one commuter told local media.

Rockville city, Montgomery County, and Maryland State Police blocked both lanes of Interstate 270 with more than 30 police vehicles, numerous dogs, helicopters, and officers going to car to car with weapons drawn as seen here:

What caused this open manhunt and dismissal of the citizen's 4th Amendment rights? A bank robbery where the three suspects were believed to have driven their getaway car onto the freeway.

Motorist Carlton Higdon told local reporters there was, "a lot of yelling, a lot of orders being given... helicopters, dogs barking, sirens, police cars driving by".

Traffic backed up for miles on the freeway for over an hour with no explanation from police. Commuters exiting their vehicles to see what was happened were met with hostility from police. As one woman leaned out of her vehicle to vomit she was yelled at by an officer to stay inside and close her door. I suppose she's supposed to puke inside her car while they trample her rights.

During this encounter motorists were approached by armed officers and ordered at gunpoint to submit to warrantless searches of their vehicles. According to one witness police were just walking along, weapons drawn ordering people to "Pop the trunk! Pop the trunk!". He overheard a man in a truck next to him call out to another motorist: The police are looking for bank robbers. Shortly after, about nine officers approached his car - including state police in tan uniforms, county police in dark uniforms and at least one plainclothes officer wearing a yellow tie.

Is it possible that there were consensual searches? Is anything ordered at gunpoint consensual? Reportedly not one person was brave enough (foolish enough?) to refuse the hostile violation of the 4th Amendment. Would you be?

Montgomery County Police Captain Paul Starks described the searches as an operation of "systematically checking the trunks and rear hatches" of the vehicles caught in the roadblock.

Rockville Police Chief Tom Manger remained defiant and unapologetic when he told local station WTOP, "For those folks that wondered how is that the police can just walk through traffic like that and get folks to show their hands, get folks to pop their trunks, between the exigency of the circumstances and the information that we had, it gave us the legal foundation to do what we did".

The massive roadblock and 4th Amendment violations did net the bank robbers and the stolen $7,000 dollars. The robbers were found in their vehicle and did not resist when taken into custody. They were not found hiding in anyone else's trunk.

Of course, by putting armed criminals into a miles long roadblock authorities made it more likely they would take someone hostage or commandeer an innocent bystanders vehicle. Some will say that the ends justify the means and as long as the robbers were arrested, the "operation was worth it". 

Was the roadblock worth it? Not if you believe in the principles of "liberty and justice for all". The criminals were caught, but the innocent motorists were treated as part of the crime during warrantless searches by officers with weapons drawn simply because they happened to be on a stretch of highway going about their day. 

Was this Maryland's "Intro to Police State" class?

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Popcorn Time: A Movie Streaming Service Like Netflix, Only With Illegal Movie Torrents

Always wanted to illegally download movies using BitTorrent but found it too difficult to figure out? Now you don't have to, as a programmer has made a new open source free movie streaming app called Popcorn Time that streams movies directly from peer-to-peer networks.

Users of BitTorrent clients share and distribute large files over the internet, which are distributed in segments called pieces to users, who are known as "peers". Once a user receives every single piece of the file, they can continue to share their copy with other users as "seeders".

"As a designer I love the challenge of simplification. Take something hard for the common user and make it usable. I have a lot of friends who don't understand torrents and I wanted to make it easy and effortless to use torrent technology," the app creator from Buenos Aires, Argentina, known on the internet as Sebastian, told Torrent Freak.

Sebastian took only a few months to code the app and Popcorn Time offers instant access to hundreds of films, complete with subtitles and able to be streamed in a range of qualities, from 720p to full HD.

Of course, all of this is illegal as Popcorn Time links to copyrighted movies, many of which haven't yet been released on iTunes or Amazon for legitimate digital movie downloads, but Sebastian and his team of 20 collaborating developers working on the Popcorn Time project onGitHub don't seem to be too concerned.

"We don't expect legal issues. We don't host anything, and none of the developers makes any money. There are no ads, no premium accounts, and no subscription fees or anything like that. It's an experiment to learn and share," he said.

"The technology behind the app is very simple. We consume a group of APIs, one for the torrents, another for the movie info, and another for the poster. We also have an API for the subtitles. Everything is automated, we don't host anything, but take existing information and put it together."

The movie industry might not see it that way, as everything Netflix has done to reduce movie piracy, Popcorn Time could very easily undo, even though the website carries a disclaimer stating that "downloading copyrighted material may be illegal in your country".

Add to that, BitTorrent Portal websites like The Pirate Bay and Kick Ass Torrents continue to make an average of $4.4 million (£2.6m) in advertising revenue every year, according to a recent report by the Digital Citizens Alliance.

"We hate that we don't have the chance to watch some movies at home. Popcorn Time is an experiment to show that you can do something better for the users, and that you can do it with BitTorrent," says Sebastian.

Popcorn Time is officially still in beta testing mode, but the developers have promised that the platform will continue to remain free and open source for as long as it exists.

Burn Fat While You Sleep? How To Activate Your Fat Burning Hormone Tonight.

Fuel your fat burning engine – even while you’re sleeping.  New research has revealed a breakthrough discovery now being used by thousands of women to sky-rocket their fat burning process by simply activating a little-known hormone.

In our special guest presentation below, you’ll hear from University of Florida professor, John Barban.

In this short video, he reveals how you can activate this hormone today and literally expect to drop up to 3 dress sizes inside of a week.

He also shows how to strategically eat the foods you crave most (Yay!), and still experience a slimmer waistline. Plus, you’ll also learn which common foods touted as “healthy” can make losing a single pound virtually impossible for women.

Discover this same life-changing information John has taught to thousands of women around the world so you can quickly and easily get the body you’ve always dreamed of. Watch now below.

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