Cash machines infected with worm 11:02 26 November 03 NewScientist.com news service
It is the first known case of a worm actually installing itself on individual ATM operating systems, says Peter Lind, a security expert at Spire Security in Malvern, Pennsylvania. Earlier in 2003, the Blaster worm shut down Bank of America ATMs, but only by causing a flood of traffic that clogged the network's bandwidth.
In the Welchia case, the only harm done was that the traffic generated by the worm trying to contact other machines shut down the ATMs. The worm, also known as Nochi, was not particularly malicious. But it is indicative of a worrying trend, says Lind.
"Nowadays it seems that any device that supports any kind of networking is opening the door to access and sometimes that access might be malicious," he told New Scientist. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994425
Visions of ATMs spitting twenties on to the pavement...
