Ransomware WannaCry attack: Banks cautious, shut down ATMs operating on old software

As part of precautionary measures, banks did not operate some automated teller machines (ATMs) running on old software in view of threat from ransomware ‘WannaCry’.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked banks to follow the instructions of government organisation CERT-In on ransomware, which has impacted various IT networks in over 150 countries.

Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has come out with a list of do’s and dont’s and webcast on how to protect networks from the global ransomware attack. Most ATMs were running fine, there could be some which may not have updated Microsoft’s Windows operating system, sources said.

Such ATMs could be prone to attack so as precautionary measure banks running such ATMs refrained from feeding cash, sources added. However, there was no official information in this regard from the RBI in this connection till late evening.

There are a total of 2.2 lakh ATMs in India, of which few may be running on old Windows XP.

In a separate malware attack last year, 3.2 lakh debit cards were compromised in the country. Data of the users who transacted from ATM machines of Hitachi were compromised during three months of May, June and July last year.

The Hitachi ATMs deployed by many White Label ATM players and Yes Bank were impacted by the malware.