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November 17, 2018

Got 20 Minutes? Black Friday ATM Hunting

Filed under: Cybersecurity,Hacking — Patrick Durusau @ 11:06 am

One definition of Black Friday reads:

The Day After Thanksgiving (Friday) is known as Black Friday. This used to be unofficially or officially the start of holiday shopping season. Almost all stores come out with Doorbuster Sales with the early bird special to attract consumers to their shop. People stand in line hours before the stores are opened, to grab the bargains of the year. In last few years, we have witnessed a trend towards bringing those Black Friday Sales online before Friday.

Suffice it to say it is an orgy of consumerism and consumption, which originated in the United States but it has spread to other countries.

One constant at shopping locations, Black Friday or no, is the presence of ATM (Automated Teller Machines) machines. ATM finder services are offered by Visa and Mastercard. A search using “atm location” reveals many others.

I mention all that because I encountered Most ATMs can be hacked in under 20 minutes by Catalin Cimpanu.

From the post:

“More often than not, security mechanisms are a mere nuisance for attackers: our testers found ways to bypass protection in almost every case,” the PT team said. “Since banks tend to use the same configuration on large numbers of ATMs, a successful attack on a single ATM can be easily replicated at greater scale.” (emphasis added)

Cimpanu includes a list of the ATMs tested. Nothing is more innocent than using an ATM on Black Friday and noting its type and model number. Privacy is required for the attacks described but usually for less than 20 minutes.

Armed with a list of ATM with model numbers and locations, plus the attacks as described in the original report, you may have a reason to celebrate early this holiday season. (BTW, strictly for research purposes, did you know they sell ATMs on eBay?)

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