Schneier on Security: ATM Fraud and British Banks:

An absolutely great story about phantom ATM withdrawals and British banking from the early 90s. (The story is from the early 90s; it has just become public now.) Read how a very brittle security system, coupled with banks using the legal system to avoid fixing the problem, resulted in lots of innocent people losing money to phantom withdrawals. Read how lucky everyone was that the catastrophic security problem was never discovered by criminals. It's an amazing story.

See also Ross Anderson's page on phantom withdrawals.

Oh, and Alistair Kelman assures me that he did not charge 1,750 pounds per hour, only 450 pounds per hour.

(Via Schneier on Security.)