Wireless point of sale hacking

Marketing Director at Advantio. The articles published in the Advantio Blog have the goal of supporting our mission: making IT Security simple for everyone.

My intention is to discuss IT Security related topics with the eyes of a non technical person, speaking a simple language and trying to show to the readers the benefit of IT Security best practices. Back to Blog. Malware is a successful method to hack PoS and steal Customers Data. Target Target is one of the best known American brands, famous for selling miscellaneous goods that range from clothing to CDs to groceries. Home Depot In , Home Depot, the home improvement retailer, was also in the news for a similar breach.

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Performing a review of the media inventories at least annually Performing a review of the media inventories at least annually Performing a review of the media inventories at least annually. Written by Igor Mancini LinkedIn. Schedule a call with an expert. Published by Francesco Consiglio on December 14, Published by Martin Petrov on November 26, Cybercriminals can steal troves of financial data from weak cybersecurity on these terminals, and attacks on the systems have affected millions of people at hotels , stores and restaurants.

Attackers are specifically looking at inexpensive card readers, which have exploded in popularity as small businesses like your local food truck use them to accept noncash payments.

These mobile readers often attach to another device, like a smartphone or a tablet. Researchers estimate that 46 percent of all noncash payments will be done through a mobile reader by It turns out, Galloway said, physically they were really hard to get into, but as far as cybersecurity goes, they found a few holes. Three of the readers mentioned had a flaw that could've let a dishonest merchant change what customers see on the screen.

That meant the device could show that a transaction failed when it really didn't and prompt customers to pay twice. The vulnerability opened up various possibilities for merchants to steal from customers. The display could also be adjusted to ask customers to use the magnetic stripe on the credit card, instead of the more secure chip.

That would make victims vulnerable to attacks already associated with swiping cards. Many mPOS terminals use Bluetooth to connect to devices, and the Positive Technologies researchers found that most of them didn't use a secure form of pairing. In a secure protocol, Galloway said, Bluetooth devices could be associated with a password, or with a notification that lets people know what gadgets they've connected to wirelessly. In a recent high-profile Canadian case, a criminal carding ring stole PoS machines from several businesses and gained access to the credit card data via Bluetooth.

Given that the PoS hacking process only took roughly an hour to complete, it was easy for the hackers to remove a device and return it before businesses reopened the next day.

This particular case is believed to have been facilitated by bribing employees to allow access to the devices after business hours. If the thieves are sophisticated enough, there is no need to physically remove the PoS terminals; malware can be installed during what appears to be a normal consumer transaction.

At the July Black Hat security conference, a researcher demonstrated how some terminals using a Linux-based operating system had a loophole that did not require firmware updates to be properly authenticated.

This allowed the researchers to use an adjusted credit card to install malware onto one terminal during a normal transaction.

The malware prompted the terminal to contact a rogue server and download the card skimming software. The demonstration highlighted exactly how to cheat the system, showing just how vulnerable retailers can be - even the most stringent of physical security measures preventing devices from being tampered with may not be enough to prevent a PoS hack.