Nobody knows yet whether it was planted by an attendee, or if the ATM had been there for some period of time before the event, but hackers at last week’s DefCon conference in Las Vegas discovered a rogue unit that was designed to capture customers’ credit card data with each use.

PCMag says it was placed by criminals pre-conference, but Wired’s Threat Level blog says, “It’s not known how long the ATM was in the hotel or whether it was placed there by a DefCon attendee to catch his fellow hackers or simply by an outside criminal group trying to target conference attendees.”

An attendee grew suspicious of the tinted plastic front and shone a light through it, where he saw a PC instead of the expected security camera. Speaking of which, Wired says the ATM was placed in apparently the one location in the Riviera Hotel where there isn’t a security camera—”right outside the hotel’s security office.”

“Malicious ATM Catches Hackers” [Threat Level]
“Fake ATM Doesn’t Last Long at Hacker Meet” [PCWorld via The Observer]

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.