[Year 12 IT Apps] Data security

[Roland Gesthuizen]

During 2008, I briefly amused myself with a price-checking terminal in a popular department store in the States whilst my wife was happily buying jeans that were on sale. Lacking a smart phone, I poked around the various menu option, the application halted and suddenly crashed. I suddenly found myself in a security hole where I could drop to a file explorer window. To my surprise, the device was running WIndows-Lite, a similarly primative OS. I could walk up and down the entire file tree, looking at the folder names. I could not see the contents but did have the odd privilege of making folders. From memory, I created a root level folder called “Please Secure Me”, took some souvenir photographs and departed when I was handed an armful of freshly purchased jeans.

I was trying to remember a remark that Harry Harrison once made about Stainless Steel Rats that live in technologically advanced civilisations.

—
Roland GESTHUIZEN
http://about.me/rgesthuizen

> On 17 Apr 2015, at 12:42 pm, Mark <mark at vceit.com> wrote:
> 
> Found in my travels. This is from 2014, which makes the story even more chilling in 2015.
> 
> Banks everywhere are in a race against time to upgrade their ATMs before they become hot targets for hackers.
> 
> An estimated 95% of American bank ATMs run on Windows XP, and Microsoft is killing off tech support for that operating system on April 8 [2014]. That means Microsoft (MSFT) will no longer issue security updates to patch holes in Windows XP, leaving those ATMs exposed to new kinds of cyberattacks.
> 
> http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/04/technology/security/atm-windows-xp/ <http://money.cnn.com/2014/03/04/technology/security/atm-windows-xp/>
> 
> -- 
> 
> >> Witty sig goes HERE <<
> 
> Mark Kelly
> mark AT vceit DOT com
> http://vceit.com <http://vceit.com/>
> 
> 
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