With cyberattacks on retailers growing by the day, it’s surprising few security vendors have aimed solutions directly at vectors specific to this industry.
Kaspersky Lab is hoping to change that with the release today of a new solution for ATM and Point-of-Sale (PoS) devices to protect them from malware.
“Kaspersky Embedded Systems Security,” as the solution is known, is dedicated to payment platforms at both retailers, banks, hospitality, healthcare and more.
In recent years ATM skimming has moved from physical methods to digital ones, with Kaspersky citing its discovery of novel versions of specialized malware as recently as last month.
Specifically, the solution addresses ATM and PoS machines designed with specific tasks, use a limited number of programs, computers running outdated operating systems, ATMs on slow networks and spread out geographically, and advanced compliance environments.
It does so by supporting as little as 256MB of memory and 50MB of disk space, as well as operating systems Windows XP and later, and Windows XP Embedded, Windows Embedded 8.0 Standard and Windows 10 IoT. It features centralized reporting and management, can block unauthorized executables and is integrated with the cloud-based Kaspersky Security Network.
“Upgrade cycles for ATM and PoS fleets are slow, and it is not uncommon today to find a perfectly working machine that was built more than ten years ago, running similarly outdated software,” Dmitry Zveginets, Kaspersky embedded systems security solution business lead at Kaspersky Lab said in a statement. “This is why we’ve created a product compatible with seven generations of computer hardware that protects the system, even without an internet connection.”
