Diebold has partnered with firewall vendor Sygate in an effort to protect its automated teller machines from future virus attacks after admitting that a computer worm infected devices at two of its banking customers in August.
An unknown number of ATMs running Windows XP Embedded were shut down during the spread of the so-called "Nachi" worm, said Diebold, which declined to name the banks involved. Nachi was written to clean up after the MSBlast, or Blaster, worm, and spread through holes in Windows XP, 2000, NT and Server 2003.
It is believed to be the first such incident of a computer virus directly afflicting an ATM, but experts are forecasting more problems as banks increasingly move their critical customer-facing operating systems to Windows.
In response, Diebold is to ship Sygate Security Agent software with all new ATMs and offer to install Sygate agents on existing Windows-based ATMs already deployed. Additionally, Diebold will resell Sygate's management servers and offer support to customers securing their ATM networks.