“ jackpotting ”, a new type of robbery

In the small village of Simorre (Gers), the only cash machine has been out of service for a month. He was attacked by hackers. They operated in the middle of the night, three weeks ago. Armed with a drill, they cut out a piece of the distributor’s facade to access its software. They then connected with a laptop, and sent the data from the bank to an accomplice, located several thousand kilometers away. The latter took the hand, and emptied the device.

The case is not isolated: in recent weeks, similar attacks have been repeated in the North, in the Paris region, then in the Bordeaux region and the Alps. Police and gendarmes have noted 34 attacks on distributors in the past six months. The modus operandi is sophisticated. Brains, hackers, are almost impossible to locate. “The contractors are Russian-speaking. On the other hand, the projected teams are multiple and varied with individuals who can be of several nationalities.“, explains Cécile Augeraud, head of the Central Office for the Fight against Computer Crime (OCLCTIC). They practice always at night, in rural areas and as far as possible from the police.