Tag Archives: south

‘Jackpotting’ hackers steal over $1 million from ATM machines across U.S.: Secret Service

A hooded man holds a laptop computer as blue screen with an exclamation mark is projected on him in this illustration picture taken on May 13, 2017.

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A coordinated group of hackers likely tied to international criminal syndicates has pilfered more than $1 million by hijacking ATM machines across the United States and forcing them to spit out bills like slot machines dispensing a jackpot, a senior U.S. Secret Service official said on Monday.

Within the past few days there have been about a half-dozen successful “jackpotting” attacks, the official said.

The heists, which involve hacking ATMs to rapidly shoot out torrents of cash, have been observed across the United States spanning from the Gulf Coast in the southern part of the country to the New England region in the northeast, Matthew O’Neill, a special agent in the criminal investigations division, told Reuters in an interview.

The spate of attacks represented the first widespread jackpotting activity in the United States, O’Neill said. Previous campaigns have been spotted in parts of Europe and Latin America in recent years.

“It was just a matter of time until it hit our shores,” O’Neill said.

Diebold Nixdorf Inc and NCR Corp, two of the world’s largest ATM makers, warned last week that cyber criminals are targeting ATMs with tools needed to carry out jackpotting schemes.

The Diebold Nixdorf alert described steps that criminals had used to compromise ATMs. They include gaining physical access, replacing the hard drive and using an industrial endoscope to depress an internal button required to reset the device.

A confidential U.S. Secret Service alert seen by Reuters and sent to banks on Friday said machines running XP were more vulnerable and encouraged ATM operators to update to Windows 7 to protect against the attack, which appeared to be targeting ATMs typically located in pharmacies, big box retailers and drive-thrus.

While initial intelligence suggested only ATMs running on outdated Windows XP software were being targeted, the Secret Service has seen successful attacks within the past 48 hours on machines running updated Windows 7, O’Neil said.

“There isn’t one magic solution to solve the problem,” he said.

A local electronic crimes task force in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area first reported an unsuccessful jackpotting attempt last week, O’Neill said.

A few days later another local partner witnessed similar activity and “developed intelligence” that indicated a sustained, coordinated attack was likely to occur over the next two weeks, O’Neill said. He declined to say where that partner was located.

Jackpotting has been rising worldwide in recent years, though it is unclear how much cash has been stolen because victims and police often do not disclose details.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington, D.C.; Editing by David Gregorio)

Flights canceled, schools closed across snowy U.S. South

Snow falls through a picture frame in the Boston Public Garden during a winter storm in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., January 17, 2018.

By Gina Cherelus

(Reuters) – A bitter winter storm gripped much of the South on Wednesday, prompting schools to close and causing thousands of flight delays and cancellations as snow, ice and record-breaking cold hit the region.

The storm led to a least one death when a vehicle in Austin, Texas, plunged more than 30 feet off a frozen overpass late on Tuesday, killing a man in his 40s, Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Service said on its Twitter feed.

Winter weather advisories were in effect from the Northeast to the Mid-Atlantic states and Southeast, as well as over the central Gulf Coast of Texas, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). Winter storm warnings were also in effect for portions of the Carolinas, southern Virginia and the New England area.

More than 360 outgoing flights at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport were canceled or delayed on Wednesday, according to Flightaware.com, and another 60-plus were canceled or delayed at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport.

The governors of Georgia, North Carolina and Louisiana declared states of emergency due to severe winter weather conditions, which caused multiple car accidents during rush-hour traffic, officials said.

NWS meteorologist Dan Petersen said snowfall in central and north Georgia had ended, and the arctic cold front would now bring snow, frigid temperatures and frozen roadways across central North Carolina on Wednesday.

“The rain in central North Carolina will eventually turn into snow later today and is predicted to dump 6 to 8 inches of snow over central North Carolina and about 1 to 3 inches over east North Carolina,” he said.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper warned at a news briefing that cold temperatures Wednesday night would make travel conditions even more hazardous.

“The snow is pretty, but don’t be fooled,” Cooper said.

In Houston, the nation’s fourth most populous city, most freeways were closed on Wednesday morning after icing over, the city’s Office of Emergency Management said.

“Not a good idea to be out on the roads. Conditions are still unsafe,” the Texas Department of Transportation Houston Division said on its Twitter feed.

New Orleans had record-breaking cold temperatures Wednesday morning with 20 degrees Fahrenheit in the area, beating its previous record 23 degrees set in 1977, according to the NWS. Hattiesburg, Mississippi, also broke temperature records with 12 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday, beating its 14 degrees also set in 1977.

(Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and David Gregorio)

After weird winter, U.S. forecasters see warm, wet spring

A couple embraces in front of an ice-covered fountain in Bryant Park in New York City, U.S.

By Barbara Goldberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) – If you liked the balmy weather that dominated on the U.S. East Coast and much of the South this winter, you will probably enjoy the spring of 2017, too.

The new season, which officially begins on Monday, should bring more of the same in both regions, forecasters say, though for the East, a final twist of winter weirdness will have to play out before the region basks in the warmth again.

Spring, which starts with the vernal equinox at 6:28 a.m. EDT on Monday, will begin warmly but Wednesday’s temperatures are predicted to plunge into the 20s (-1 to -6 Celsius) and teens in the U.S. Northeast, with a snowstorm possible in the Midwest, according to Accuweather.com.

After the warmest February on record in New York City and other parts of the Northeast, winter returned with a vengeance last week with a paralyzing snowstorm and sustained stretch of sub-freezing temperatures.

“That was our three days of winter,” said Jon Gottschalck, chief forecaster at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In New York, where pedestrians are still navigating deep piles of snow and ice, the mercury was expected to dip below the freezing mark overnight and then climb to about 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) on the first day of spring.

“Hang tight, bear with it, because our forecast for spring is above-average temperatures,” Gottschalck said.

That may come as cold comfort for the nation’s capital. Last week’s cold snap annihilated half of the pink-and-white cherry blossoms that typically draw 1.5 million tourists to Washington in early April. Lured to an early bloom by historic warmth, they were dangerously exposed, said National Park Service officials, who soldiered on with a festival celebrating survivors expected to reach peak bloom around March 25.

While the East Coast luxuriated in the mild temperatures, and Texas and Louisiana had the warmest winter in more than a century, the West Coast enjoyed a welcome stretch of wet weather after years of drought.

Nevada and Wyoming set records for precipitation, while California had the second wettest winter in the 123 years of record-keeping, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.

Temperatures for April, May and June were expected to be above normal in the Southern Plains, lower Mississippi Valley and the East Coast, said NOAA meteorologist Dan Petersen. For the West Coast, the long-range forecast was still unclear.

But NOAA is calling for a wetter-than-normal spring on the Gulf Coast and in the Northern Plains, where above-average snowfall in North Dakota and Idaho could trigger flooding.

On the final day of winter, almost 110,000 animal lovers worldwide remained glued to a YouTube streaming video of a pregnant giraffe named “April,” who is overdue to give birth at Animal Adventure Park in upstate New York.

Much more of a wait may mean a spring birth amid winter temperatures.

(Additional reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Frank McGurty and Sandra Maler)

Storms continue slamming U.S. South after killing at least 18

Air Force airman surveys the damage done by January tornado in Georgia

By Letitia Stein

TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) – A dangerous weekend weather system killed at least 18 people in the U.S. South, with Georgia officials reporting more than a dozen deaths on Sunday after severe thunderstorms and tornadoes buffeted several states.

Seven people died in Cook County, Georgia, state emergency managers said, with a mobile home park particularly hard hit, according to reports. Photos showed collapsed buildings, destroyed rooftops, toppled trees and debris-littered fields.

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal declared an emergency for seven counties in the south-central part of the state, warning that dangerous conditions persisted as wind and flood warnings remained in effect for much of the state early on Monday.

“I urge all Georgians to exercise caution and vigilance in order to remain safe and prevent further loss of life or injuries,” Deal said in a news release.

First Baptist Church Adel, located in the Cook County seat near the Florida-Georgia state line, was sheltering more than 50 people, said pastor Bill Marlette, who had just helped inform a family that two of their relatives were among the dead.

“There’s a lot of hurting people right now,” he said in a telephone interview. “There’s just a sense of shock.”

The storms in Georgia, which killed 14 people, followed a predawn tornado in Mississippi on Saturday that killed four. Severe weather also injured more than 50 others and damaged about 480 homes in Mississippi.

A few storms continued to threatened coastal areas in Georgia on Sunday night, said Mark McKinnon, a spokesman for the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency.

The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for Rome and Calhoun until 3.30 a.m. EST, advising residents to move to higher ground.

The system prompted forecasters to issue a rare “high risk” warning of severe storms threatening parts of southern Georgia, north and central Florida and Alabama on Sunday, the first such warning since 2014. South Carolina could also see severe weather.

In Alabama, some 29,000 power outages were reported as of Sunday afternoon, Alabama Power said. Several thousand had also been without power in Mississippi.

The severe weather was expected to last through Sunday night.

As the system churned up the East coast, emergency management officials warned New York City residents to brace for winds of up to 70 mph through Monday night, with several inches of drenching rains. Flood advisories and watches were issued for four of the city’s five boroughs.

On the west coast, heavy rains from a separate system drenched parts of Southern California, with forecasters warning the storm could be the most severe in several years.

(Additional reporting by Frank McGurty and Chris Michaud in New York, David Beasley in Atlanta and Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Calif.; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Peter Cooney, Chris Michaud and Michael Perry)

Storms and Tornadoes brewing into Wednesday

Forecast of where thunderstorms will be most likely on Tuesday.

Storms will be boiling and brewing, especially for the plains, midwest and the south starting on Tuesday. The National Weather Service is forecasting a cold front that will bring unsettled weather to the western U.S. into Tuesday with a numerous severe thunderstorms possible near portions of the Plains and Great Lakes on Monday.

Significant and severe thunderstorms will be quite possible across parts of the southern and central great plains Tuesday afternoon into the nighttime hours. According to The Weather Channel’s severe storm expert, Dr. Greg Forbes, there is a substantial possibility of strong, long track tornadoes for central and east Kansas and in portions of central and eastern Oklahoma.

Some of the cities for Tuesday’s storms that will be affected are Dallas-Fort Worth, Hastings, Nebraska, Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Wichita, Kansas.

Wednesday the storm system will begin moving east, triggering numerous storms from the Missouri Valley to the mid Mississippi Valley, Lower Ohio Valley, the Ozarks and northeast Texas. These areas will have the potential for severe storms, tornadoes, large hail and damaging winds.

The Weather Channel and the National Weather Service are asking that you review your severe weather preparedness and stay tuned to local forecasts to track potentially dangerous weather systems.