How Cybercriminals Stole $40 Million From ATMs Worldwide In Just 10 Hours

An image taken from the phone of a suspect shows Elvis Rafael Rodriguez (L) and Emir Yasser Yeje (R), two of the eight individuals charged with using data obtained by hacking into two credit card processors in a cybercrime scheme among other images.

Cybercriminals stole $40 million in about 36,000 transactions over a 10-hour period by effectively coordinating two common credit card schemes, Scott Neuman of NPR reports.

First, hackers gained access to bank computers and downloaded prepaid debit card data while erasing their withdrawal limits.

Second, they passed the data to numerous "cashers" who cloned the cards and got to work withdrawing millions of dollars from ATMs.

No word on how exactly the hackers gained access to the bank databases (i.e. Was it by phishing?).

Chuck Somers, vice president of core systems and ATM security at Diebold, told NPR that neither of those things are unusual by themselves  — but the clockwork coordination of the hack, the cloning, and the "cash-out network" resulted in one of the biggest bank heists in history.