The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Technology makes for easier transactions, but with strings

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Monday, Mar 31, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Technology makes for easier transactions, but with strings

K. Lakshmi and L. Srikrishna

Murder of a guard inside an ATM kiosk six months ago threw up security issues

Photo: — N. Sridharan

An autorickshaw driver uses his debit card at an ATM in Thiruvanmiyur.

CHENNAI: The Automated Teller Machines and ATM cards, some of which can also be used as debit cards, have become an integral part of banking operations.

They have made life easier for customers and saved them the trouble of waiting in serpentine queues for basic banking functions. Many of the savings account-holders with the cards seldom go to their bank branches. However, the new technology comes with security issues attached.

According to statistics from Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Chennai, there are more than 200 ATMs in the city. Of these, 140 belong to public sector banks.

The murder of a security guard inside an ATM kiosk on Kamarajar Salai six months ago brought police officers and bankers together. Bank representatives agreed with the police on the need to step up security measures by installing surveillance cameras and deploy well-trained guards with training in martial arts. The police had also promised to intensify checks during night patrols and sign the register regularly at ATM kiosks.

An RBI official said all ATMs were required to install at least two cameras as per the instructions of the apex bank in February last year. The security guidelines for setting up ATMs in the city cover the procedure of loading money into machines, monitoring of recordings made by the cameras and surprise checks of the facilities.

“Those banks that have two machines in the same enclosure are instructed to provide commensurate security,” he said.

However, police officers said that cameras have been fitted only by a few private banks. Pointing out that entry into an ATM enclosure should be restricted to one person at a time, police officers of the cyber crime wing said several enclosures had two machines without adequate security.

Though bankers claim that the system was adopted to reduce the rush, it could potentially make theft easier.

Shoulder surfing

Officers said the presence of more than one machine (in a small area measuring less than 100 square feet) makes senior citizens and people who rarely use ATMs vulnerable to ‘shoulder surfing’, where a person seeming to use an adjacent machine can note vital information like PIN numbers.

The customer then becomes an easy target for criminals who have been known to replace the customer’s card with one that is fraudulent. They can also note down the card number under the guise of helping the customer and, later, write the number on an expired or invalid card using appropriate technology.

With the PIN number already in hand, the customer’s account can then be hacked into.

Dangerous situation

The security guards in many ATMs remain inside the enclosure during night. This could also pose the danger of guards noting down and communicating vital information including PIN and card numbers of customer to others through similar means, another officer said.

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