“We have to think like a hacker and act proactively to head off the threats”

Self-Service Banking Asia 2017, organized by RBR (Retail Banking Research), is reckoned to be South East Asia’s leading ATM protection conference. This area is one of the world’s quickest growing regions in terms of banking cybersecurity solutions.

GMV has taken part in the congress as one of the main sponsors, explaining the new malware threats and the company’s most trailblazing technological solutions for heading them off. Carlos Sahuquillo, Security Consultant of GMV Secure e-Solutions shared his expertise on this matter, giving a paper under the title “ATM Logical Security: adapting to new threats”. Together with Marcus Lim Wooi Loon, Head of the Self-Service Terminal Business and Operations Division in MEPS (Malaysian Electronic Payment System), he also explained how this financial association has enhanced its ATM security with GMV’s help. GMV’s expert stressed during his speech the need of adapting the current ATM cybersecurity paradigm: “today’s reactive response needs to change. We’re always one step behind. We now have to think like a hacker and act proactively to head off threats”.

One of the most attention-grabbing moments of the presentation came when Carlos Sahuquillo asked the audience how many had hooked up to the venue hotel’s Wi-Fi (public and without a password). He then reminded them of the risk they were running in doing so. The reason is simple: lurking behind this open wireless network there might be anyone, even a cybercriminal, and it is precisely these factors that we need to take more firmly on board to ensure our data is not open to all comers. Nearly the whole audience were banking or finance-institution professionals, who were sending their data on a network where they were prone to be “intercepted”, giving hackers the chance of accessing all their personal information: email addresses, bank accounts, passwords, images, videos, photos, etc.

GMV ‘s catalogue of cybersecurity products includes the world’s leading ATM security solution: checker ATM Security, which has now been protecting over 122,000 ATMs from more than 33 countries for over ten years.