No, XFS won’t steal your money

So, the Inquirer runs a story by Chris Merriman today, titled “GreenDispenser malware threatens to take all your dosh from Linux ATMs” which includes this breathless little gem:

GreenDispenser targets the XFS file system, a popular standard for ATMs, originally designed for IRIX but now widely used in Linux. ATMs that use Windows XP Embedded, which is still supported, are not thought to be at risk.

Of course, I found this interesting, and a bit odd.  Could the XFS filesystem possibly be at fault here?  And is the “large and lots” filesystem really used in ATMS?  Let’s see what Proofpoint, the security firm who discovered it has to say about the subject:

Specifically, GreenDispenser like its predecessors interacts with the XFS middleware [4], which is widely adopted by various ATM vendors.

That handy link & footnote leads us to Wikipedia, which explains that “XFS middleware” refers to CEN/XFS, which is not in any way related to the XFS filesystem, or Linux, and is in fact Microsoft specific:

CEN/XFS or XFS (eXtensions for Financial Services) provides a client-server architecture for financial applications on the Microsoft Windows platform.

Nice job, Inquirer!  Nice job, Chris Merriman!

(As Jeff points out in the comments, The Inquirer has updated the article as of Sep 25, removing references to LInux and the XFS filesystem.)

3 thoughts on “No, XFS won’t steal your money

  1. However it still says “Given that cash machines generally have no access to the web”

    Which makes me wonder how the ATM knows how much money I have in my account…

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