ATM hacks in US called 'jackpotting' is on rise

World’s largest ATM makers, Diebold Nixdorf Inc and NCR Corp, have warned that cybercriminals are targeting US cash machines with tools that force them to spit out cash in hacking schemes known as ‘jackpotting’. The makers did not identify any victims or say how much money had been lost, however.The attacks were reported earlier on Saturday, January 27, by the security news website Krebs on Security, which said they had begun last year in Mexico.

An alert issued by NCR read, “This should be treated by all ATM deployers as a call to action to take appropriate steps to protect their ATMs against these forms of attack.”
Diebold Nixdorf has also issued an alert that US authorities had warned the company that hackers were targeting one of its ATM models, known as Opteva, which went out of production several years ago. They also explained the way the criminals had used to compromise ATMs, which include – gaining physical access, replacing the hard drive and using an industrial endoscope to depress an internal button required to reset the device.

Russian cybersecurity firm Group IB has also reported that cybercriminals remotely attacked cash machines in more than a dozen countries across Europe in 2016. Similar attacks were also reported that year in Thailand and Taiwan.