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OPINION: Did PIN thieves grab hacking's holy grail?

August 13, 2008

(MSNBC) The Red Tape Chronicles: Could a hacker steal enough information from a store you've shopped at to print up fake debit cards in your name and withdraw cash from your checking account at an ATM, even if you've never told a soul your PIN?The Justice Department last week said it's already happened, possibly to millions of people.Buried in last week's indictments of 11 alleged international computer hackers — accused of stealing 40 million credit and debit account numbers from U.S. retailers — was something far more unsettling: The indictments accuse the group of swiping encrypted versions of debit-card PINs, decrypting them, and then using the information to print debit cards and get cash from ATMs.If proven true, that could mean criminals have crossed a new threshold in the pursuit of plastic card fraud — PIN hacking.

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