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Possible Serious Security Flaw In ATMs
sfjoe writes "According to a story at MSNBC.com, researchers at Algorithmic Research (ARX) have shown it may be possible for 'someone with access to the ATM network to attack the special computers that transmit bank account numbers and PIN codes, called hardware security modules'. Using these methods, an attacker could trick the security modules into exposing a PIN. It has long been considered impossible to access PINs as they are traveling through the ATM network without the encryption key used by the card-issuing bank. If PINs can be compromised, the almost 8 billion transactions per year they handle may be in danger. Not to mention all the transaction at retail stores."
I know I am probably the exception amongst most of you. We don't have an ATM card, we go down to the corner bank to get money out the old fashioned way. Everyone at the branch knows the wife and I and no one else could get money out without generating a lot of questions. There's a lot to be said for the good old days.
It would be easier to simply use a video camera over the shoulder of an ATM visitor, and just as effective.
Using the information directly at an ATM to get a couple of hundred dollars would be too much effort, too high risk, and too little return. More likely, the PIN would be used to obtain larger sums of cash via other methods - calling in a bank transfer or something to that effect.
While on the surface it seems unlikely that somebody would go through the hassle, if one gained access to the ATM network, and had means to unencrypt the traffic at least in part, there is a great deal more potential for crime than simply obtaining an ATM PIN number.
Banks shouldn't be reliant on security at the switches either - all it takes is one bad employee to reduce the effectiveness of on site security to nothing, and I imagine with the pay rates they are kicking out, there are more than a few employees vulnerable to trouble of one sort or another.
I used to be a teller in a bank a few years ago. It is a very transitory position. I was there for nearly two years and there were few who had been there longer than I and many who had come and gone. Give it some time and people at the bank won't know who you are.
Having said that, I hope that even if they do know who you are, that they ask to see ID every time, like my teller colleagues and I did. A lot of people have this silly notion that the only time we ask for ID is if the person in front of us is not the person on the account. For some reason they didn't understand that we had no way of knowing that until we had seen ID. When we asked we actually had idiots say "Why? I'm the owner of the account," as if we would turn red in the face and say "Of course you are. How silly of me to ask. Certainly a criminal would have provided us with ID without being asked."
But if tellers ever get to the point that store clerks do (and I suspect many have) then any old schmoe will be able to take money out of your account. I can't tell you how many times I've had cashiers ring up a sale without ever even looking at either my ID or my signature on the back of the credit card. I've had times where I offered and was refused, as if they didn't want to have anything to do with security checks of any variety as that might bring upon them responsibility or something. I'm not talking about small purchases here either.
So my point is, if bank tellers get to the point of laziness as most cashiers, you're money isn't safe in the bank whether or not you have an ATM card. The best you can do is keep an eye on it and report anything as soon as it happens.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
No, I think that person becomes a "PIN cushion". :P
The ATM machines should directly encrypt the card info with the issuing bank's public key(or at least with the single operators public key, and then only get re-encrypted once, by that trusted machine)....that way the men in the middle/other banks along the way do not have the ability to see the transaction info
I fear the Y2038 bug