ATM Hack: The Tip of the Iceberg

Two stories giving some perspective on the ATM break:

A security analyst says, “What’s really exposed are the retail systems that use the ATM system. It could have been an insider
it’s very hard to know. It was someone who had access to the [encryption] keys data. They were very skilled.”

“The analyst said the crime reflects the largest PIN theft to date and the financial industry will be hit by more PIN-block fraud in the future,” writes Consumerist reader Brian.

aviv.jpg“But Citibank is only the tip of the iceberg,” said Avivah Litan (pictured), a Gartner research vice president and apparently, the only person who knows anything and can talk to the press, “The scam — and scandal — has hit national banks like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Washington Mutual, as well as smaller banks, including ones in Oregon, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, all of which have re-issued debit cards in recent weeks.”

“This is the worst hack ever,” Litan maintained. “It’s significant because not only is it a really wide-spread breach, but it affects debit cards, which everyone thought were immune to these kinds of things.”

PIN block hacks are this year’s phishing.

[via Information Week] (Thanks to Brian!)

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