Security Features of ATM
Definition of ATM
An ATM is an electronic device which
allows a bank's customer to make cash withdrawals and check their
account balance at any time without the need for a human teller. Many
ATMs also allow depositing cash or cheques, transfer money between their
banks. The World's first ATM was installed in ENFIELD town in the
London on June 27, 1967 by Barclays bank.
ATMs are known by various other
names including Automated Transaction Machine, automated banking
machine, cash point (in Britain),money machine, bank machine, cash
machine, hole-in-the-wall, Bancomat (in various countries in Europe and
Russia), Multibanco (after a registered trade mark, in Portugal), and
Any Time Money (in India).
An automated teller machine or
automatic teller machine (ATM), also known as an automated banking
machine (ABM) in Canada, and a Cash point (which is a trademark of
Lloyds TSB), cash machine or sometimes a hole in the wall in British
English, is a computerised telecommunications device that provides the
clients of a financial institution with access to financial transactions
in a public space without the need for a cashier, human clerk or bank
teller. ATMs are known by various other names including ATM machine,
automated banking machine, and various regional variants derived from
trademarks on ATM systems held by particular banks
Introduction of Security Features of ATM
Various protocols are used for transferring information over the network in the ATM. A few of them are explained in brief:
1. TCP (Transmission control protocol):
- Connection oriented protocol.
- TCP is used to dynamically adapt to properties of the internetwork & to be robust to face any failures.
2. SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol):
- Simple ASCII protocol, Accepts incoming messages & sends them to appropriate locations.
3. X.25:
- It is a standard network protocol, Connection oriented.
- Provides flow control.
4. SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol):
- Used when information in entered through the keypad
As most of the ATMs are open
for 24 hrs & also all of them are not guarded, it is important to
provide security to the machine. One of the technologies is explained
here.
The Electronic Signature Lock (ESL) is
a patented technology that can be implemented in hardware, firmware, or
software and used to protect digital resources, funds transfer, or
physical access. It can identify computer terminal users locally or
remotely without having to modify or attach anything to the terminal. It
is completely transparent to the users and can be used surreptitiously
without their knowledge and still uniquely identify them.
The ESL is attached to or integrated into the protected resource,
such as a computer or automatic bank teller machine (ATM). It will
identify the local or remote terminal users as impostors even if they
know all the pass words, accesscodes, and protocols for accessing the
protected resources, if they are not who they say they are, just as if
their fingerprints had been taken remotely and surreptitiously. Face
recognition or finger print recognition are also the techniques used for
the security of an ATM. In these techniques the related data is stored
in the database
1. Modern ATM physical security concentrate on denying the use of the money inside the machine to a thief or a fraud using some fraud detection techniques.
2. The customer request a withdrawal from the machine which dispenses no money but merely prints a receipt. The customer then takes the receipt to a sales clerk and exchange it for cash.
3. An additional security measure limits the total amount of ATM withdrawal to some particular amount.
4. This aims to reduce the amount of fraud withdrawal
