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Hacker Develops ATM Rootkit
alphadogg writes "One year after his Black Hat talk on automated teller machine security vulnerabilities was yanked by his employer, security researcher Barnaby Jack plans to deliver the talk and disclose a new ATM rootkit at the computer security conference. He plans to give the talk, entitled "Jackpotting Automated Teller Machines," at the Black Hat Las Vegas conference, held July 28 and 29. Jack will demonstrate several ways of attacking ATMs, including remote, network-based attacks."
I'm stuffing all my cash under my mattress from now on. If you can't trust a Deibold ATM, what can you trust?
Can the banks file a lawsuit at him?
I can't stand companies not taking security seriously.
Remember when ATMs first came out? The data being sent from ATM to the bank's systems had NO encryption.
You almost made it through the whole summary without saying it.
...just get a deal going with McAfee? Then there systems would be completely safe and always online!
"from the well-that-doesn't-make-me-feel-better dept."
Where's the zip, the punch in your writing? This is the news business! If Larry Wall can be funny AND write Perl code, so can you!
Suggestions:
"from the All Your ATM Are Belong To Us dept"
"from the Who Says Cybercrime Doesn't Pay dept."
"from the Your Money Is In Good Hands -- NOT dept"
"from the Can We Have Human Tellers Again dept"
"from the It'll Be The Debit Of Me dept."
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
It is just you. I know a good specialist if you want.
EULA : By reading the above message, you agree that I now own your soul.
Can anyone determine if these are Automated ATM Machines?
I'd better be careful entering my personal PIN number into these from now on.
As far as I can tell, all ATMs are based on data processing OSes - either ones with a desktop heritage then multi-processing and networking added on (Windows) or with a data processing/networking heritage with desktop added on (*nix families). It seems to me that they ought to be based on real-time control OSs, such as those used in the automotive and aerospace industry, I don't see how an ATM is any more complicated than a Digital Engine Control system, especially for state-of-the art engines. People who design such systems know about reliability, which can include security in a limited function machine. The problem with general-purpose machines is that they have generalized functionality, just hidden away. Such systems can be subverted and the extra functionality exploited. Machines built from the ground up to do only what they have to do do not have the functionality to be subverted.
I see no reason why such fixed-function machines should be much more expensive that those based on general purpose machines. There is an up-front cost in getting started, probably compensated by reduced security testing later. Wat will be harder is all the dreams the marketing people will have, of using the ATM to do other things, such as sell insurance. It will do only what it is built to do. Inflexible, but secure.
Consciousness is an illusion caused by an excess of self consciousness.
John Connor did this way back in '91 ... which means the machines ... oh shit.
So the combination is... one, two, three, four, five? That's the stupidest combination I've ever heard in my life! The kind of thing an idiot would have on his luggage!
Threaten to disclose the vulnerabilities, get paid hush money to pull your presentation (again). Rinse, repeat.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
What pisses me off is that he is publishing this.
Why does that make you mad?
Only two groups of people should be upset by this revelation: any thieves exploiting the weakness who may soon lose their money stream, and the banks who have to plug these holes.
The only reason the banks should have to be mad is that they may not have budgeted the costs of these fixes for this year. Well that's too bad, I'm all broke up for them.
So again I ask, why you are mad? Are you a banker or a thief? (And yes those are usually different unless you're on Wall Street.)
John
His talk is a year old already. You don't think he's disclosed it to the banks long ago? No, they've had all the warning they need. Now it's time to prove they've fixed their equipment.
Seriously, if he never releases his info, it will never get fixed. You can talk to the I.T. staff for a year about the problems and nothing will get done. The banks can even have a guy inside I.T. shouting "we gotta fix this!!" and he'll be ignored.
Post it on the internet, deliver it to a roomful of blackhats, THEN something will get done. Until then, however, we're all still vulnerable to the bad guys who are already exploiting this kind of crap.
John