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Bank Employee Plants Malware on ATMs
Wired's Threat Level has a piece on a Bank of America employee, Rodney Reed Caverly, who has been charged with installing malware on ATMs in North Carolina. Caverly, who worked on the bank's IT staff, allegedly withdrew cash untraceably from the ATMs over a period of 7 months last year. "The charges were filed the same day that credit card company Visa warned the banking industry that Eastern European ATM malware recently showed up in America for the first time. That code, initially spotted last year on some 20 ATMs in Russia and Ukraine, was designed primarily to capture PINs and bank card magstripe data, but also allowed thieves to instruct the machine to eject whatever cash was still in it... At least 16 versions of the East European malware have been found so far and were designed to attack ATMs made by Diebold and NCR, according to the April 1 Visa alert. There is no information tying the malware found in Russia with the malware allegedly used by Caverly."
I once deposited cash at a Diebold BofA ATM that didn't use envelopes. The little door around the cash-taker closed on the bills and stuck there, so I had to slide/pull them back out. It couldn't read the amount I'd put it (since it ended up being $0) so it made me enter it on the keypad. It wouldn't accept that I'd deposited $0, so eventually I told it I'd deposited $1 so it would give the card back.
To put a long story short, those things are not well-programmed.
Hmmm, where have I heard that before, the terms Diebold and untraceable in the same sentence...beats me!
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
This fellow will serve more time than any of the bank CEOs responsible for the huge mess in America's economy.
who has been charged with installing malware on ATMs in North Carolina. Caverly, who worked on the bank's IT staff, allegedly withdrew cash untraceably from the ATMs over a period of 7 months last year.
Wait - so if they caught the guy, how the hell is that untraceable?
Just because you don't follow the money doesn't mean you aren't tracing.
Although I hear diebold does better with ATM's, I can't help but wonder how much effort they put into ATM security versus the voting machine fiasco.
Meanwhile, ATM's have always been pretty shoddy on security. It's a given. People essentially have physical access to the device.
I wonder if it would be better to have ATM's running a virtual or other remote hosted ATM client so that nothing is hosted on the ATM directly? Or is this already being done in some places?
Diebold ATM's run a special version of Windows - it's not stock Windows XP. They work directly with Microsoft to create a specialized version where Diebold has much more control of the low-level functions and it's missing a lot of standard Windows components. I worked there for a years.
Now I'm not saying that it is 100% safer and full-proof as I hate the fact that it is Windows-anything, but its definitely better than stock XP.
Who did he kill? How many children did they find in his basement?
> Although I hear diebold does better with ATM's, I can't help but wonder how
> much effort they put into ATM security versus the voting machine fiasco.
Probably completely unrelated. They got into the voting machine business by purchasing a company that was showing a prototype and then rushing the prototype into production without bothering to develop an actual product. That says a lot (none of it good) about their top management, but nothing about the people in their ATM division.
They eventually dumped the voting machine business, and it is possible that they learned from the experience.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
... what do you do if you get counterfeit bills from an ATM?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Although I hear diebold does better with ATM's, I can't help but wonder how much effort they put into ATM security versus the voting machine fiasco.
I went to a Bank of America branch here in Eastern NC one day last year, and saw a Windows XP error screen on the ATM. I then saw a Diebold guy coming out of the bank, and asked him about it. He says that the BoA ATMs are now running XP on them. How safe do you feel knowing that?
A lot of ATMs have been running Windows for years. I remember 10 or so years ago after I finished my transaction the ATM rebooted. On the green monochrome screen was the POST check, followed by a Windows NT splash screen. I've also seen various Windows errors over the years on ATMs. Some were still NT4.0 errors, even recently. A lot of kiosks run Embedded version of Windows. As do cash registers.
I've also seen my fair share of Linux based kiosks sitting with an error, or in an endless reboot cycle, so Windows isn't alone in this regard.
He accidentally withdrew $305326.13. Must have put a decimal in the wrong place...he's always messing up some mundane detail like that, from what I understand.
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Is this the dude who put that "This bank charges a $3 fee for you to get your own money" exploit on there?
I hate that.
Hang him.
And I suggest you do not use them either. They just operate and behave wrongly, even when they don't have malware installed.
They're slow. -- ATM's in the 80's were faster.
They're obviously running window XP. -- The standard windows sounds are used.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
When you don't change the default password, it doesn't matter if you're running XP, 95, OS/2 or SELinux.
When you can overlay a fake cardreader over the top of the device's real reader, it doesn't matter if you're running XP, 95, OS/2 or SELinux.
When the criminal behind it is also a device admin, it doesn't matter if you're running XP, 95, OS/2 or SELinux.
How safe do you feel knowing that?
This is why banks should use Linux. That way it would be impossible to install the same malware on all systems. Because each slightly different model, released on slightly different dates, would have different versions of incompatible libraries
“Why GNU/Linux Viruses are fairly uncommon” from Charlie Harvey
NO AC, it is not special, it is the regular plan vanilla. It is stock XP with branding done on it with the Diebold name (just like DELL and all the others do to their XP to make them look special)...and yea its installed with a script that leaves out some windows stuff that you don't need...but again this is not special either. I can't say how I know, but trust me I know.
Well as an aside, it is windows XP embedded kiosk edition, but other than that, its the stock banana, so all the viruses and back doors will still work as written.
Because stupidity and arrogance is traceable.
Somehow the money has to get from the hopper to the guys home, then from the guys home to buy stuff. My guess would be the guy was caught spending beyond his means, then they started following him to ATM's where he was then recorded withdrawing the money. Then when they go looking for what account he withdrew money from, and it couldn't be found. Then again he may have just bragged about it to his girlfriend, then when he dumped her...
"I can't say how I know, but trust me I know."
Now there is a security issue right there.......
Rick B.
Windows-anything handling your money is Just Not a Good Idea.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27159137@N08/3186737368/
-- *My* journal is more interesting than *yours*...
Do you know what a corporation is? A corporation going bankrupt is not the same as a proprietorship going bankrupt; this is the whole reason that you start a corporation... to shield your salary/earnings in case the company goes under. The trade-off is that you essentially pay income tax twice (it is wayy more complicated though).
OK, that came out ruder than I wanted it to.
My point is that a blind person using an ATM is dangerous. Unless he has echolocation, he can't know that nobody is watching. Also, how can he tell that he's at a real ATM?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
One issue with touch screens is the ability for a would be attacker to merely clean the screen before you use it. Although recovering further data is not as simple (magstrip, chip, removable device) you are still filling in blank spaces for a would be attacker and that is not usually a good idea.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
The article mentions how some malware previously seen in Ukraine and Russia has shown up in the USA for the first time. While I have not been to Russia, I have been to Ukraine several times. For years now, Kiev (the capital of Ukraine) has been infamous for ATM fraud. Rule of law is very weak in Ukraine and police and the judicial system are notoriously corrupt. Anyone "caught" for ATM fraud could just bribe his way out of trouble. I even heard of fake ATMs placed in various locations in Kiev that never give out money, all they do is record info off the ATM cards and pin numbers and that info is used by the crooks later. It's been like this since at least the early 2000s. I never used an ATM on the times when I was in Kiev. I brought enough cash with me to use anytime I was going to Kiev. For the record, I used ATMs in various other Ukrainian cities and I never had a problem. In fact the only city I've ever heard of ATM fraud happening in is Kiev, but it wouldn't surprise me if it happened in some other large cities like Odessa.
for electronic cash transactions.
I expect to be back to only using cash in about 20 years.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I expect to be back to only using cash in about 20 years.
If the economy keeps heading in the direction it's going, I expect to be using the barter system within 20 years.
Like as in: Hey Mr. Blacksmith, I'll swap you 3 dozen fresh hen's eggs for a pound of nails and this here yearling billygoat for welding up my broken plow blade.