During the pandemic, lockdowns forced people to stay at home and do their shopping online, which was mirrored in point-of-sale (PoS) and ATM malware activity, as certain regions saw malicious transactions drop significantly. Now, as we predicted in last year’s forecast, many are returning to their usual ways of life, visiting stores and withdrawing cash, and the threat of PoS/ATM malware is also making a comeback: the cybercriminals are already implementing new ways to steal from banks and organizations, and the number of attacks is on the rise, too.
By cracking an ATM or PoS terminal, attackers can obtain tens of thousands of dollars overnight. The risk is the highest with older ATM models, as these are difficult to repair or replace and seldom use security software to avoid further degrading their already-subpar performance.
PoS terminals are attacked just as often: few people give a thought to the fact that these machines need protection, as they hold the key to the bank accounts of hundreds of customers. These devices can be found in almost every store, restaurant, or other type of establishment, but they can be even easier for fraudsters to access. The reason is the same as with attacks on ATM machines: due to the large number of PoS terminals, most owners take too long to update their equipment, using obsolete operating systems running old (and vulnerable) software, to preserve the compatibility with legacy hardware and software.
Perpetrators continue to spread already-existing, widely used malware to attack PoS terminals and ATMs. As a result, both the threat of these attacks and the number of incidents are growing.
Methodology
We observed the threat landscape of ATM/PoS malware at ..
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