Defcon 13: Robert Morris, ATM Network Vulnerabilities

When was the last time you visited an actual human being to withdraw some spending money? In a world were most people visit computers for cash, ATM Networks have been traditionally thought of as a secure haven. Financial data theft is more of a reality than ever, but the backbone for the majority of cash to consumer transactions is not a target. I will show you why that is about to change. During my years at the NSA, I witnessed the growth of the electronic banking industry and observed many poor security design decisions as the ATM network was built. The means for authentication, the protection of data, and the methods for transferring sensitive information are just the tip of the iceberg. The ATM network is the next financial hacking pot of gold. Robert Morris received a B.A. in Mathematics from Harvard University in 1957 and a M.A. in Mathematics from Harvard in 1958. He was a member of the technical staff in the research department of Bell Laboratories from 1960 until 1986. On his retirement from Bell Laboratories in 1986 he began work at the National Security Agency. From 1986 to his (second) retirement in 1994, he was a senior adviser in the portion of NSA responsible for the protection of sensitive U.S. information.