Cybercriminals are leaving no stone unturned in making money by hacking various devices. There are many ways in order to carry out hacking. In this blog, I am going to shed light on another way which is called ‘Jackpotting’.
This kind of hack is especially used for attacking ATM machines and to take all the cash from the ATM, there is a need for physical access to the dispensing device.
In the recent past, the US encountered jackpotting in many areas. Diebold Nixdorf Inc. and NCR Corp., world’s largest ATM makers have warned US citizens that cybercriminals are targeting ATM’s with a tool by spitting out cash in hacking schemes. They also said that though these crimes occurred in the U.S., it had not been identified whom they have targeted and how much money was deposited.
Jackpotting appears to be easy but actually, it’s not. The renowned security blog ‘Krebs’ wrote that to gain access to any of the ATM and to deploy malware or particular electronics solution, a combination of both to control the operation of ATM; hacker is required.
The question arises that how jackpotting works and how criminals hack ATM devices. Most of the US ATM’s are working on Windows XP or other older versions which are more prone to hacking than latest operating systems such as Windows 7. Group IB, a Russian firm announced that such kind of security threats hit many of the European countries, Turkey and Taiwan as well; in 2016.
Do you know? The first jackpotting occurred at Mexico in 2013, not in U.S. According to FireEye, Inc. it was done using Ploutus malware, recognized as one of the most advanced of the ATM malware family back some years. One main reason behind this attack’s late arrival to spread in the U.S. is it may have so easy to get away with physically stealing from ATMs in Latin America than in the US. So, they are now moving to the US to check how they can win here.
To get protection against these jackpotting attempts, ATM makers, financial institutions, and law enforcement are defending 400000 ATM’s in the US.
However, Krebs said that customers need not worry because of jackpotting. He said that it only targets money, not the personal information or funds of consumers.
As per CNN, secret service memo reported a minimum of 6 attacks from mid-January that took place in every area of US and more are yet to come across the US.
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