Weird news - Stealing the ATM

You would have heard of people trying to rob a bank, making many different strategies and mechanisms - in fact, movies about major bank robberies show many different weird methods of doing the same. The same extends for trying to get money when it is on the way, this includes looting cash vans and other major movements of money or precious items / jewels. However, there are so many mobile money spots that seem to be now becoming more of a target. Some scripts talk about hacking ATM's to enable them to dispense money to the attacker, but how about just taking the ATM away and retrieving the money inside it at leisure. '
In many cases, ATM's are located at remote locations with no security guards, which means that these ATM's are vulnerable to anybody wanting to pick up these ATM machines forcibly. Even with security devices and connections to police monitors, their remoteness means that there is a good chance that the attacker can pick up the ATM and be on the way before somebody can stop them (link to article):

Unidentified robbers took away at least two ATMs of Axis Bank, one containing Rs 10 lakh, in the past two days in Noida and neighbouring Hapur district. While five masked men allegedly uprooted an ATM from Rachna market on the NH-91 in Badalpur area on Thursday night, another ATM was taken away from Pilukhwa area in Hapur district on Friday night. Both the ATM booths were not guarded and their security depended on a locked shutter. According to police, at least five robbers were caught on CCTV taking away the ATM from Rachna market around 2.30 am on February 1. The machine contained nearly Rs 10 lakh. Kuldeep Singh, who owns a vehicle-repair shop adjacent to the ATM in Rachna market, said: “When we reached our shop around 8am the next day, we found a part of the machine lying there. The machine was gone and the shutter of the ATM was open.”

Weird news: Thief gets locked inside ATM

An ATM seems such an effective way to get money. You go to an ATM, put in your card, enter a password, and can get your money easily. This also makes it attractive to thieves. Some try to waylay people who are trying to withdraw their money (typically at isolated locations, or when it is darker), although in recent times there have been cases when people just try to steal the ATM machine itself. After all, the machine contains the money inside it, and when there is money inside a box, no matter how strong the box is, one can finally break it open and take the money. One bi variable in the business is about when the ATM is full of money or when it is almost empty.
Given this recent trend, ATM manufacturers and banks try to beat these thieves; some of these include ensuring a CCTV in the ATM room, having any attempts to tamper with the ATM's triggering an alarm, and some automation. This thief below would never have figured out that his attempt to steal from the ATM would ensure that he gets stuck in a dark room unless he was let out by the police (link to article):

"The accused has been identified as Zakhir, a 26-year-old carpenter. He entered the ATM when the guard was not there and tried to break open the machine using his carpentry tools. Failing in opening the machine he entered a small room built inside ATM to which the machine is attached, and tried to open the cash box of the machine from there," police said. "The intrusion detection system installed inside the automated teller machine got triggered by his efforts and the small cabin got jammed. The doors got locked and the lights went off. Zakhir got trapped inside the cabin, and an automatic message was generated by the system to its head office in Mumbai. The branch then informed its Delhi office which contacted the guard to locate his position," said a senior police officer.

Weird news - Want to steal money from an ATM ? Take the entire ATM with you

Seems like the most logical step to take, right ? You are a group of thieves and are planning to steal money / need some money. Well, there is this machine that is dispensing cash to everybody, so it must contain a lot of money. Now, how to take the money ? It is not so easy to break into an ATM machine since it contains a number of security safeguards, and there would be people nearby (because of which you cannot take the amount of time you would require to break into the machine). Further, because of security issues, or even because of thieves forcing people to withdraw money at gun-point, ATM's now come equipped with CCTV cameras. This makes thieving a bit difficult. The solution ? Take the entire ATM with you, and then you can open the ATM at your own time, and the company has no way to find out where you have gone (link to article):

A shopkeeper noticed that the machine inside the ATM cabinet was missing and immediately informed the police. The police said the thieves had first blocked the view of the camera fitted at the entrance of the ATM booth with a flex board and then decamped with the cash machine containing Rs. 7.6 lakh. This happened just a day after a similar attempt-to-break-in occurred at the ATM centre on Jangali Maharaj Road. The thieves there were, however, unsuccessful. The Dehu road police said the incident took place in the wee hours yesterday. The burglars were successful in their handiwork because the machine was not fixed properly to the floor.

Weird research - ATM's as dirty as public loos

We normally believe a lot in what we can see, so when you look at public convenience, even if it seems totally clean and sparkling, you will always consider it dirty and a place to quickly go, do your thing, and leave. But other places seem clean, look clean, and so we consider those places as clean. Obviously, we cannot look at the places at a much deeper level, and truly determine whether these places are also clean, or do they also contain a lot of germs that can cause public illness. Would you be surprised if you knew that there are many places as clean as a public toilet, even the seemingly clean ATM (link to article):

The next time you take out money from an automated teller machine (ATM), make sure you either wear gloves or wash your hands. Cleanliness tests have revealed that cash machines are as dirty and carry the same germs as public toilets.
Health experts took swabs from the numeric key pads on a string of ATMs around Britain that are used by thousands of shoppers every day. They then took similar swabs from the seats of nearby public toilets and compared the bacteria under microscopes in a lab. The swabs were left to grow overnight and samples from both locations were found to contain pseudomonads and bacillus - bacteria known to cause sickness and diarrhoea, according to the Daily Mail.