Slashdot Mirror

Diebold ATMs overwhelmingly run Windows. (Not all, AFAIK, only most.) Given what everyone knows about windows security, it can be hard to say exactly why this is but it is clear that something is wrong here. Diebold promises you as much accuracy at the ATM as they do at the polls. And of course, they are not alone.

Actually, Diebold's ATMs aren't nearly as reliable as people think. I actually saw and played with an ATM at Carnegie Mellon University which crashed and rebooted into XP... people had it running Media Player until some sleep-deprived kids taking OS couldn't take it any more. Some pictures here.

Thats ok, since they're being replaced with Diebold Brand Media Players.

Windows-based ATM crashes happen all the time.

Windows ATMs have been everywhere for awhile -- the days of OS/2 cash machines being the only story in town are long gone.

Nothing to see here, move along.

I seem to post this everytime this comes up, but once again. Diebold ATMs run Windows (95,NT and XP depending on how old they are). They have been known to crash to the desktop and often run unpatched. They have been hit by several worms over the years but banks keep on buying the dang things. Here of course is a link to a Diebold ATM running as a MP3 player after it had crashed to the XP desktop (touch screen, XP, built in speakers. Makes sense to me). I will never use a Diebold product, be it ATM or voting booth.

You can read it here or here. You can also check these pictures. As you can see their ATMS are a complete joke, easily as bad as their voting machines.

All of these applications are pretty trvial to code from scratch to only do a very narrow range of tasks, thus making them easy to audit, and easy to secure. Diebold is a complete amateur at this stuff, and I hope to see them eventually sued into a greasy smear on the corporate highway.

Given that the ATMs run unpatched Windows XP and have in the past been hit by internet worms I fail to see whats so shocking about any of this. I will not use a Diebold ATM, even if that means I dont eat lunch because there's no other source for cash handy.

Nope. Many Diebold ATM systems are unpactched Windows XP installs with a internet connection and no firewall. Here are some images someone setup as an MP3 player after it crashed to the desktop.

yeah, good thing...

As other people have posted here are pictures of a Diebold ATM crashed here on campus that dropped to the Windows XP display. We poked around at it for a while because the monitor was a touch screen (and a very, very crappy one that that). Interesting things:

- Windows media player was installed (as seen in the pictures)
- It's a P4 2GHz with 512mb of ram (wtf?! why on earth does it need that)
- There's a CD-RW installed
- There are two partitions and C: can't be accessed
- There's the standard crap that comes in My Documents (like the Beethoven playing)
- The printer is an Epson USB printer
- There was a device listed for ATM Driver or something, I presume what actually feeds cash.
- We never were able to get the network up, but there's an Intel network card in there.
- For some reason there are speakers so we could hear the Beethoven.
- It's running XP Embedded, didn't catch what version or what patches it had.
- There was some sort of Text-to-Speech (or maybe S-to-T) program
- As you can see Acrobat is installed
- Remote Desktop was enabled! (might have been turned on by one of us though)

That's what I remember from the 5 minutes before running to class.

t seems like these Diebold systems have all sorts of features like smart cards and locks that make them look secure, but when you actually kick the tires you realize things are not as secure as they should be.

Seems like Diebold's Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) are no more secure. Until I'd clicked that link, I'd never seen the Windows Media Player playing on an ATM.

This crap is supposed to save us from another Florida chad-count? Or have we just decided that democracy isn't really important enought to make secure?

Here are some photos of a crashed Diebold ATM from National City bank. Yep, that's the windows desktop and the college kids who took the photos were controling the machine. Be afraid.

Videos and photos of one of Diebold's ATM machines at Carnegie Mellon playing Beethoven today might amuse you.

Looks like a Diebold ATM machine's software crashed and dumped out into Windows XP.

Oops.

This is a DECstation after recieving a nice beating and causing the cops to be called on me and a friend. Hopefully having this in comments won't get it slashdoted -- it's no longer on a university network...

If you want to help by doing more than just participating in local ARES and RACES nets, you can actually show up to help. As of last night, the place to go was 150 Amsterdam Ave (corner of Amsterdam and 66th St. What you should really do though is check into the 147.000 (-, PL 136.5) repeater on your way into the city or the 444.050 (pl 114.8) repeater. These are controlled nets at the moment, so communicate with net control. You do not need to be currently affiliated with ARES or RACES to help. Over the next few days as the fervor dies down, operators will be needed more and more for the shelters which will be continuing to be open, as well as the support operations in the hot zone.

The area is truly a scary sight (These photos were taken last night by me.) and no matter where you are volunteering for them, you are supposed to participate in a debrief which includes psychological counseling if necessary.

If you are not a licensed ham, the Red Cross can still use your help, they desperatly need volunteers to man the shelters expecially nurses, doctors, and mental health professionals, but volunteers with no special training as well.

73,
Adam pennington - KB1ELI