Among the many iPhone apps, two Chinese nationals developed a fraudulent one: the Apple device was used to rob video poker machines. The computer scam has been foiled.
Two Chinese nationals residing in the province of Reggio Emilia had devised a system to win the jackpot on video poker machines, the common machines found in many bars and public venues across Italy.
Simply by bringing an iPhone close to the electronic device (even just keeping it in their pocket) could trigger a cascade of coins: a software program had been installed on the device, which – through mechanisms yet to be fully understood – managed to crash the video poker machines, thus causing them to dispense winnings in tokens, quickly converted into cash.
The owner of a bar in Castelnovo Monti noticed the computer scam, becoming suspicious of the unusually high frequency of wins by the two Chinese individuals.
While a bit of luck is certainly plausible, statistically it should have been impossible to achieve such a winning streak, generating several thousand euros in easy money within a few hours.
The bar owner therefore alerted the Carabinieri, who apprehended the two men and confiscated the tricked iPhone, which is currently held by the RIS (Research, Investigation, and Experimentation Service) of Parma for analysis.
The analyses are ongoing to understand precisely how the software interacts with the video poker machines: what is certain is that the man with the device in his pocket was definitely issuing a command, as wins occurred every time his hand went into his pocket.
The greed of the two scammers certainly enabled the swift foiling of their scheme, however, the discovery of such software cannot leave investigators or cybersecurity experts indifferent.
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