Payment terminals without targeting thieves

Wireless payment terminals are simpler to configure to obtain a refund.

Radio-Canada

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Burglars have a new target in Toronto businesses and restaurants. They no longer attack the cash drawer, where cash becomes scarce, but the electronic payment terminals.

That's what Toronto police said during a summit on business break-ins on Friday.

More and more of these break-ins are committed with the direct aim of fleeing with electronic payment terminals. Once in possession of these terminals, criminals use the redemption function to empty the accounts of targeted merchants, explained Shannon Dawson of the Toronto police.

She said nearly 300 of these devices were stolen last year.

It's us happened several times over the past two years, says Dan Ferracuti, owner of Safari Bar & North York Grill.

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They Are Able to Do It do it, and unless you can stop it, the money goes out of your account, straight to a prepaid debit card, and it happens very, very quickly. I was able to see it in real time: $1000, $1200, $1500.

Or , according to an expert, new versions of these terminals have better security measures.

Mr. Ferracuti claims that a burglar who took his terminal tried to steal $47,000 from him, but he succeeded, by luck and with the help of his bank, to block the transaction.

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Dan Ferracuti explains that Many of these terminals have default passwords.

There is a default password on every machine and if you don't change it, thieves know them.

A quote from Dan Ferracuti, owner of Safari Ba & Grill

Also, since the machines operate over the telephone network, thieves can take them and carry out the operations elsewhere , as long as there is network.

The neighbor of Mr. Ferracuti's restaurant, Winnie Shao, manager with her husband of 30 years from the Avenue Seafood restaurant and caterer, says she was also the target of these thieves.

One evening, shortly after closing the doors of the business and around 6:30 p.m., our security company called me and told me that someone had broken in, she recalls.

However, she says, the burglar probably did not attack her electronic payment terminal because it This is an old model, connected by wire. The police told me that with new wireless technologies [thieves] withdraw the money and transfer it to another card, when you are away.

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Winnie Shao, manager of a seafood caterer was able to avoid having his payment terminal hacked because it was a wired model.

According to City Councilor Mike Colle, who initiated the summit, break-ins are on the rise. He says his neighborhood of Eglinton and Lawrence has seen unprecedented numbers.

Small family businesses are financially devastated by these break-ins, estimates the local elected official.< /p>

According to Scott Tabachnick, a spokesperson for Moneris, a company that markets this type of device, improvements have been made to the new machines. For our terminals, you have to change the default code at the time of initialization, he assures.

Ms. Dawson also advises keeping [the devices] in secure locations to drastically reduce the chances of successful these flights.

She calls these acts a crime of opportunity: once a person succeeds, they do it again.

With information from Dale Manucdoc and Thomas Daigle, from CBC