two articles about ATM pin?

i found both of these article today while browsing around...
looks like drama at the Banks ;)


http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/29425.html

Quote:

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How to get an ATM PIN in 15 guesses
By John Leyden
Posted: 21/02/2003 at 13:34 GMT


Cambridge researchers have documented a worrying PIN cracking technique against the hardware security modules commonly used by bank ATMs.

Mike Bond and Piotr Zielinski have published a paper detailing how a complex mathematical attack can yield a PIN in an average of 15 guesses. By design, it shouldn't be possible to guess a four-digit pin in less than an average of 5,000 attempts.

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http://slashdot.org/articles/03/02/2...9.shtml?tid=93

Quote:

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Citibank Tries to Hush ATM Crypto Vulnerability
Posted by michael on Friday February 21, @03:00PM
from the be-vewwy-vewwy-qweit dept.
palme999 writes "Citibank is trying to get a gag order for new vulnerabilities found in the cryptographic equipment commonly used to protect the PINs of ATM transactions. The vulnerabilities came to light during a court case involving 'phantom' ATM transactions that users deny making but that banks still charge to customers accounts because they claim their systems are secure."

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There's an article telling you exactly how to do it somewhere, but you need to be on the inside, so it doesn't look like I'm going to be getting rich anytime soon!!

Theres a link here to the follow up article if you're interested http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/55/29446.html

And another thing, isn't it a bit late putting a gag on them after they've published it to the world?

Quote:

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... published a paper, which explains how a corrupt insider might be able to use a cryptographic attack to obtain PIN account codes

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