Report: 95 Percent of the ATMs in the World Still Run Windows XP

[hollysmom]

Report: 95 Percent of the ATMs in the World Still Run Windows XP

Right now, 95 percent of the 2.2 million ATMs in the world run Windows XP, according to a report by Reuters. Furthermore, Microsoft ends support for the 13-year-old operating system on April 8, only a third of the ATMs currently running XP will have been upgraded to something newer.
But unlike your home PC, which will be on its own after April 8, ATMs will still get security updates and other necessary operating system maintenance—so long as they pay up.

Britain’s five biggest banks—all five of them—are unprepared and are negotiating agreements with Microsoft so the company will continue support. As Reuters reports, it will cost each bank about $100 million total to both maintain support and also get the system upgraded.

Meanwhile, most of the roughly 440,000 ATMs in the United States will also keep running XP for a while after Microsoft officially ends support. They will be on extended contracts, and many will use the switch as an impetus to upgrade their ATMs with microchip readers, increased data encryption, and/or other improvements.

I refuse to accept an ATM card from any bank. Don't need them. Cash, check and credit cards make up the difference.

[steve2470]

1. I contacted my CU about this

They reassured me they were doing the necessary security work. They, of course, didn't give me the technical details.

[hollysmom]

2. those silly little details.

Like I said I don't have an ATM card, Having worked for so many banks, I don't even like them to have any money. I am turning into an under the mattress kind of person. All I can say is 10 years into ATMs in an unsecured building, there were blank ATM cards next to a card making machine and a huge printout of everyone ones security information, card number, name, pin number. They tested on live data - backing out transactions after playing with someones data. You could only hope these clowns backed stuff out correctly. The fact that they called me in to check on their restoring accounts correctly and paid quite a bit for that work, shows how sad they really were.

[benld74]

3. We zll know banks do things the cheapest manner possible

of course the OS is still XP. Why update until absolutely needed, besides its not their $$$ is it?