Most of us have seen some cool ‘hacks' in movies – but the most widely dreamed about is when we can walk up to an ATM in the street and take out all the money, without anyone knowing. While many people believe this is fictional, it appears that with the right software it is totally possible.
Declan McCullagh at CNET wrote a very entertaining story detailing how Barnaby Jack, a director of security testing at IOActive hacked into two ATM's at the Black Hat Conference stage. He said : “I hope to change the way people look at devices that from the outside are seemingly impenetrable.”
Jack didn't steal the ATM's, he bought them online and then spent years working out how to break the code. He documented programming errors and vulnerabilities which let him gain access to two machines from Triton and Tranax Technologies. In doing this he says he has also learned how to hack into built in safes made by the same companies. Triton and Tranax have seen fixed the security issues with his help, so at least something benefical has came from his hacking exploits.
He also went onto detail how he has hacked four out of four ATM machines, boasting about a 100% success rate so far. You can read more about this interesting article over here.
Its always done so much cooler in movies. a young kid, just cracks the codes immediately then taps into thousands of dollars on an ATM, in reality it takes the hacker years to hack one of them after buying it online 🙂