New Zealand computer security expert Barnaby Jack has shown "hacking" into an automatic teller machine can be easy with the right software.Mr Jack, director of security testing at Seattle-based computer security consultant IOActive Inc, hauled
New Zealand computer security expert Barnaby Jack has shown "hacking" into an automatic teller machine can be easy with the right software.
Mr Jack, director of security testing at Seattle-based computer security consultant IOActive Inc, hauled two ATMs on to a Las Vegas conference stage and demonstrated how, with the press of a button, an ATM could spew out all its cash.
"I hope to change the way people look at devices that from the outside are seemingly impenetrable," Mr Jack told the Black Hat computer security conference, CBS reported.
The 32-year-old Aucklander – currently living in the United States – showed one that even allowed a hacker to connect to the ATM through a telephone modem and, without knowing a password, instantly force it to disgorge its entire supply of cash.
Mr Jack said he bought the pair of standalone ATMs over the Internet and then spent years poring over their software code.
The vulnerabilities and programming errors he unearthed during that process, Mr Jack said, let him gain complete access to those machines and learn techniques that can be used to open the built-in safes of many others made by the same manufacturers.
"Every ATM I've looked at, I've found a game-over vulnerability that allows an attacker to get cash from the machine," Mr Jack said. "I've looked at four ATMs. I'm four for four."
