Dark Reading is part of the Informa Tech Division of Informa PLC

This site is operated by a business or businesses owned by Informa PLC and all copyright resides with them.Informa PLC's registered office is 5 Howick Place, London SW1P 1WG. Registered in England and Wales. Number 8860726.

Database Security
Authentication
Mobile
Privacy
Compliance
Careers and People
Identity & Access Management
Security Monitoring
Advanced Threats
Insider Threats
Vulnerability Management
Comments
'Dexter' Directly Attacks Point-of-Sale Systems
Newest First  |  Oldest First  |  Threaded View
PJS880
PJS880,
 User Rank: Ninja
12/17/2012 | 8:04:24 PM
re: 'Dexter' Directly Attacks Point-of-Sale Systems





This
sounds like one nasty little malware. There is a lot of sensitive
data that is kept on POS systems. Companies keep all sorts of
customer information in their databases. Take for example a car
dealerships point of view contains license, plate, dmv info, credit
info., and purchase history. That just saved an awful lot of time
that would have had to been gotten through social engineering and
research. 40 countries are feeling the effects I can't imagine that
this will be as much of a that in the near future.

Paul
Sprague

InformationWeek
Contributor

Mark Bower
Mark Bower,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/13/2012 | 12:52:46 AM
re: 'Dexter' Directly Attacks Point-of-Sale Systems
See my other comment and details here:
http://superconductor.voltage....
Mark Bower
Mark Bower,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/13/2012 | 12:52:18 AM
re: 'Dexter' Directly Attacks Point-of-Sale Systems
There's an easy approach for this that many merchants are already using with great success - details below. In a nutshell, never let the POS see the cardholder data, but do it in such as way that the POS doesn't have to change and can still use the protected data.

http://superconductor.voltage....

Disclaimer: I work for a vendor providing payment transaction security technology to US payment acquirers, processors, gateways and merchants.
EliSowash
EliSowash,
 User Rank: Apprentice
12/12/2012 | 2:10:05 PM
re: 'Dexter' Directly Attacks Point-of-Sale Systems
Seems to me to be fairly easy to mitigate. Keep the POS terminals off the internet. Run their outbound-átraffic through a central proxy and 'whitelist' the websites they can access. Close down all the other egress ports. If the malware can't check into the C&C server, this attack is largely unsuccessful. Too bad we don't know the initial infection mechanism yet, although I'll wager it's-áa phishing email.

Oh yeah, and take another look at PCI-áReq. 1.3.3.
macker490
macker490,
 User Rank: Ninja
12/12/2012 | 1:25:36 PM
re: 'Dexter' Directly Attacks Point-of-Sale Systems
Fixing the Point of Sale Terminal (POST)

The POST will need to be re-designed to accept customer "Smart Cards"

The Customer Smart Card will need an on-board processor, -- with PGP

When the customer presents the card it DOES NOT send the customer's card number to the POST. Instead, the POST will submit an INVOICE to the customer's card. On customer approval the customer's card will encrypt the invoice together with authorization for payment to the PCI ( Payment Card Industry Card Service Center ) for processing and forward the cipher text to the POST

Neither the POST nor the merchant's computer can read the authorizing message because it is PGP encrypted for the PCI service. Therefore the merchant's POST must forward the authorizing message cipher text to the PCI service center.

On approval the PCI Service Center will return an approval note to the POST and an EFT from the customer's account to the merchant's account.

The POST will then print the PAID invoice. The customer picks up the merchandise and the transaction is complete.

The merchant never knows who the customer was: the merchant never has ANY of the customer's PII data.

Cards are NOT updated. They are DISPOSABLE and are replaced at least once a year -- when the PGP signatures are set to expire. Note that PGP signatures can also be REVOKED if the card is lost.
DarkReadingTim
DarkReadingTim,
 User Rank: Strategist
12/12/2012 | 3:47:58 AM
re: 'Dexter' Directly Attacks Point-of-Sale Systems
There have been numerous attacks on POS systems over the years, and the technology doesn't seem to have become a lot more secure. Any readers out there hear of good solutions for securing POS?
--Tim Wilson, editor, Dark Reading


Edge-DRsplash-10-edge-articles
I Smell a RAT! New Cybersecurity Threats for the Crypto Industry
David Trepp, Partner, IT Assurance with accounting and advisory firm BPM LLP,  7/9/2021
News
Attacks on Kaseya Servers Led to Ransomware in Less Than 2 Hours
Robert Lemos, Contributing Writer,  7/7/2021
Commentary
It's in the Game (but It Shouldn't Be)
Tal Memran, Cybersecurity Expert, CYE,  7/9/2021
Register for Dark Reading Newsletters
White Papers
Video
Cartoon
Current Issue
Black Hat USA 2022 Attendee Report
Black Hat attendees are not sleeping well. Between concerns about attacks against cloud services, ransomware, and the growing risks to the global supply chain, these security pros have a lot to be worried about. Read our 2022 report to hear what they're concerned about now.
Flash Poll
Twitter Feed
Dark Reading - Bug Report
Bug Report
Enterprise Vulnerabilities
From DHS/US-CERT's National Vulnerability Database
CVE-2022-2734
PUBLISHED: 2022-08-09
Improper Restriction of Rendered UI Layers or Frames in GitHub repository openemr/openemr prior to 7.0.0.1.
CVE-2022-2729
PUBLISHED: 2022-08-09
Cross-site Scripting (XSS) - DOM in GitHub repository openemr/openemr prior to 7.0.0.1.
CVE-2022-2730
PUBLISHED: 2022-08-09
Authorization Bypass Through User-Controlled Key in GitHub repository openemr/openemr prior to 7.0.0.1.
CVE-2022-2731
PUBLISHED: 2022-08-09
Cross-site Scripting (XSS) - Reflected in GitHub repository openemr/openemr prior to 7.0.0.1.
CVE-2022-2732
PUBLISHED: 2022-08-09
Improper Privilege Management in GitHub repository openemr/openemr prior to 7.0.0.1.