Cash machines infected with worm [Diebold ATMs (gasp!) running Windows XP (Horror!)]

NewScientist.com news service ^ | November 26, 2003 | Celeste Biever (huh huh huh)

[Bush2000]

Of course, if we had contracted a device programmer or two, then our product could have saved the $45 per system we spent on embedded Win XP. Then we would have possibly had a system that was competitive to sell, and we wouldn't have closed our doors

Waitasec. You mean to say that your margin for profitability was within $45 ?

[RedWing9]

And how does a machine running XP confirm that there aren't any I/O capture spybots added by a rogue owner/operator? Even if the XP subsystem weren't connected to an insecure network I'd still be worried about it having access to the unencrypted data.

So, I suppos now that the discussion rests on the merit of every IT person supporting the system. And it's the OS's fault...how?

In the context of the post I was discussing, owner/operator theifdom has nothing to do with capable system handling by and OS such as XP. Period. Sun can't do it, Oracle can't do it, Unix can't do it, Mac can't do it, nothing can stop the person who was given trusted access in the first place. Nothing can stop them prior to the offense that is, the trace after may catch 'em, but bah!

[supercat]

So, I suppos now that the discussion rests on the merit of every IT person supporting the system. And it's the OS's fault...how?

It's the fault of using a RAM-based OS. Though admittedly one would still have to be wary of a crooked ATM operator playing certain types of interesting games to produce a counterfeit ATM, such games would be less likely to escape detection than loading spyware.

[MattAMiller]

Are there no real embedded programmers anymore?

Yes, there are, but they may be busy greeting customers at WalMart.

At least they have jobs.

[TheArchAngel]

Man, you guys are lucky to have such sophisticated ATM machines in the ole US of A. If you saw sum of the 3rd Gen ATM's that i refurbish in the UK you would probably laff.. Sadly ya can't get XP to work on an 8080 chip with a 5'25 drive...