Windows cash machine!

AJUK said:
I would have thought Winblows was overkill for something that only has to do a few things. A dedicated, more secure and crash free proprietry OS seems more appropriate.

At least they're not wireless networked I suppose. :p
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I've never heard of anyone hacking an ATM. There are plenty of scams, but these all involve mechanical devices or other manual manipulation.
NT is remarkably stable, considering the huge variety of hardware that commercial organisations run it on.

NCR (the manufacturer of many UK cash machines) used to use a dedicated OS, back in the day when the boot device was a tape or a floppy. They switched to OS2 when HDDs were used. However, banks wanted better, more flexible, graphics, so they switched again to NT.

Anyone else here fix ATMs for a living?
 
Third Opinion said:
No word of a lie I had one crash and reboot while trying to withdraw crash. It was Windows 2000, swallowed my card and left me stranded.
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Was a common problem with "chip & PIN" in the early days. They seem to have fixed the bugs now - only took them 6 years!
 
I've seen the ATM BSOD a few times, but have only had my card swallowed once.

I wonder what the people thought they ran on. Pixies?
 
I remember once last christmas at the Bank of Scotland headquarters, I put my card in the slot and the machine reset itself and loaded up saying contact support. Lost me card grrrr. Went inside and they couldn't give a toss
 
Seen the inside of the back of a cash machine once when there was an engineer at it when I was at the bank.

Was just a bulk standard PC with a keyboard, mouse, TFT etc.

Mal
 
Over Clocker said:
Seen the inside of the back of a cash machine once when there was an engineer at it when I was at the bank.

Was just a bulk standard PC with a keyboard, mouse, TFT etc.

Mal
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When I was doing work experience with HSBC I had to fill one of those bad boys up :Licks Lips: I was explicitly told no samples though :(
 
AJUK said:
I would have thought Winblows was overkill for something that only has to do a few things. A dedicated, more secure and crash free proprietry OS seems more appropriate.

At least they're not wireless networked I suppose. :p
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Funny you should mention Wireless, one of my tutors at Uni was working with NCP on security pen-testing their new Wireless ATM's, scary :eek: :D
 
Borris said:
I've seen the ATM BSOD a few times, but have only had my card swallowed once.

I wonder what the people thought they ran on. Pixies?
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I'd have expected the machine to use an embedded real time operating system such as VXWorks or to run a custom interface directly on the microprocessor as stability is key and 99% of the features windows offers are not required
 
Its interesting to see everyones viewpoints on what they think the ATMs should be using.
IIRC, i remember a cash machine in Lyon using windows as well.
 
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I was in the bank the other day and an engineer had one of these open- just a bog standard machine with small CRT. The so called 'engineer' had to get someone from support on the phone though because he was trying to install XP on the machine :p
 
On a ferry on the way to France one of the plasmay jembay's had an illegal operation message on it... This was when XP was out! not keeping up... Dodge Windows 98...
And the message was in french (understandably)
 
Last crash I saw was a Clydesdale bank machine with a Win NT blue screen of death.

Thankfully happened after swallowing the card of the customer in front of me.

Tried my best to explain that no matter how many buttons he pressed, the card wouldn't be returned that evening.
 
ajgoodfellow said:
I'd have expected the machine to use an embedded real time operating system such as VXWorks or to run a custom interface directly on the microprocessor as stability is key and 99% of the features windows offers are not required
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But that would be insanely practical, and nobody would be getting any backhanders for installing it on a global scale.

That, and the fact that the M$ business model is leaps and bounds better than the M$ end product, and they managed to sell M$ as the be all and end all of interoperability.

And VXWorks is, in fact, just pixies.
 
Kelpie said:
Tried my best to explain that no matter how many buttons he pressed, the card wouldn't be returned that evening.
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Isn't it possible to get your card back, if you have enough ID and the bank is still open? :confused:
 
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