WOW!: 95 percent of world's 2.2 million ATMs run on outdated XP

Obligatory "What could possibly go wrong?"

 

XP was released in 2001... take some of those crazy ****ing ATM fees and upgrade already.

 

Is there more to a machine's security than the incremental novelty of its op system? There aren't overarching business and functional processes that can be programmed in to ensure sufficient integrity?

 

No. Point of sale software is much the same. The overlying program is simply written to perform for long periods without maintenance or reboots. Long story short, the owners of said ATMs are too damn cheep to upgrade their software licenses for the POS software, and the machine operating system.

The vast majority of Windows XP hardware can handle Windows 7 with ease.

 

Where is eddiewinslow to explain this to us while simultaneously insulting all of us?

 

Lol, I was just thinking that

 

But..but...guys...I HAZ 40 ATMS

 

This isn't surprising. Many companies move at a snail's pace when upgrading systems. Reasons include costs, security, and yeah sometimes laziness (mgmt dragging their feet) or incompetence. Some business do move too slow though including the entities who manage these ATMs.

I'm a bit more surprised that all these ATMs are running on a Windows OS in the first place.

 

This was exactly my thought as well. Many large companies including mine are just now switching to Windows 7 within the past 12 months if at all.

 

Any word on whether Deshawn Stevenson's ATM is running a date OS?

 

Eddiewinslow, explain.

 

I could have told you this.

Most of the sizable banks have their own software and port it to the ATM hardware, and even 5-10 years on give or take, the software is still buggy in most instances.

Upgrading to newer OS's would be a nightmare. The banks wouldn't want to pay the support costs. The OS's will upgrade when new generation machines introduce new feature sets.

The last major feature set upgrade was the ability to scan checks and cash and have them deposited right away. XP was their OS choice when they introduced them.

BofA has new "teller ATM's" in a couple of places, where traditional tellers are gone, and they have people in the branch that you can talk to while using the ATM during business hours. I've never seen inside the machines, but I'd bet they have newer operating systems because they would have had to do major revisions to make the interface work.

 

Remember when eddiewinslow could post? That was fun.

"Oh the poorz pay me all the ATM fees!! I R so rich!! Rice bizniz skool bester then all!"

 

He got banned?

If so, I must say it was a great decision tbh...

 

Can we also address many banks not allowing modern passwords. Thanks.