As part of its ‘control measures for ATMs’, the Reserve Bank of India has directed banks and white-label ATM operators (WLAOs) to implement anti-skimming and whitelisting solutions by March 2019, and also upgrade, in a phased manner, all ATMs with supported versions of the operating system by June 2019.
Unsupported software
The central bank flagged the vulnerability arising out of the ATMs operating on unsupported version of the operating system and non-implementation of other security measures.
This could potentially affect the interests of the banks’ customers as well as impinge on the image of the bank.
The RBI asked banks and WLAOs to implement security measures such as BIOS password, disabling USB ports, disabling auto-run facility, applying the latest patches of operating system and other software, terminal security solution, and time-based admin access, among others, by August 2018.
In April 2017, the RBI highlighted concerns about the ATMs running on Windows XP and/or other unsupported operating systems.
Banks were also advised to put in place, with immediate effect, suitable controls.