Cambridge Students Find Way to Hack Into Banks
Source: NY Times.
LONDON (Reuters) - Two graduate students have found a way to hack into security systems that protect many banking and e-commerce transactions, Cambridge University said on Thursday.
Michael Bond and Richard Clayton, computer science Ph.D. students, developed programs allowing them to hack into an IBM (news/quote) security computer that was previously thought to be impregnable, it said.
``We've found a way for a dishonest bank employee to manipulate a bank's computer system to get customers' personal identification numbers,'' Bond said in a university statement.
Normally, several employees must authorize access to the codes.
``With the numbers, an employee could easily forge a cash card, go to a cash machine and withdraw money.''
The IBM 4758 computer received the US federal government's highest level of tamper-resistance rating in 1998.
