As most US residents are aware, the Citibank ATM/Automatic Teller Machine network failed last night. Citibank is still having problems today.
From Reuters:
"The Citibank ATM network and other systems experienced a temporary outage last evening." "While our systems were restored by early Wednesday morning, we have continued to experience difficulties this morning. We're working hard to resolve the issues as quickly as possible." Since there is very little "unique" network equipment in the world now, just about everyone buys equipment from the same vendors. So the question is, Can we learn anything from Citibank's experience. Is there anything about their continuing problems which may be used to improve general network reliability? I tried to find out some information from Citibank's web site about the issue, but I didn't see anything.
I hear the branch tellers are loving it.. Brian "Sonic" Whalen Success = Preparation + Opportunity On 5 Sep 2001, Sean Donelan wrote:
As most US residents are aware, the Citibank ATM/Automatic Teller Machine network failed last night. Citibank is still having problems today.
From Reuters:
"The Citibank ATM network and other systems experienced a temporary outage last evening." "While our systems were restored by early Wednesday morning, we have continued to experience difficulties this morning. We're working hard to resolve the issues as quickly as possible."
Since there is very little "unique" network equipment in the world now, just about everyone buys equipment from the same vendors. So the question is, Can we learn anything from Citibank's experience. Is there anything about their continuing problems which may be used to improve general network reliability?
I tried to find out some information from Citibank's web site about the issue, but I didn't see anything.
At 01:11 PM 9/5/2001 -0700, Sean Donelan wrote:
Since there is very little "unique" network equipment in the world now, just about everyone buys equipment from the same vendors. So the question is, Can we learn anything from Citibank's experience. Is there anything about their continuing problems which may be used to improve general network reliability?
I've set up a few ATMs. I have used DSLw+ & STUN on 25xx ciscos and FRADs. I have also seen modems used. The machines themselves all ran OS2, but some banks were talking about moving to NT (this was before Win2K). When they used IP, they did use cisco, but they did not all use IP. That said, I did most of this many years ago (remember - ianai :), and the "newer" stuff was almost all IP. It would not surprise me if the majority of contemporary ATMs use IP. It would also not surprise me if Citibank has a lot of old ATMs that use 4.8Kbps modems.
I tried to find out some information from Citibank's web site about the issue, but I didn't see anything.
Somehow I think they would be extremely reluctant to tell anyone what they use inside their ATMs.... -- TTFN, patrick
On Wed, 05 Sep 2001 17:53:39 -0400 Patrick W. Gilmore <patrick@ianai.net> wrote:
I've set up a few ATMs. I have used DSLw+ & STUN on 25xx ciscos and FRADs. I have also seen modems used. The machines themselves all ran OS2, but some banks were talking about moving to NT (this was before Win2K).
we did a small bank project at a place i worked a couple of years ago. the ATMs (mostly NCR, one Diebold) were all Bisync, but were converted to SNA in the course of the project. all but one (the Diebold) ran at 9600 baud; the Diebold just would not work until we slowed it down to 4800 baud. the technology involved was really pretty icky. i don't ever want to go near a small bank network again. richard -- Richard Welty Averill Park Networking rwelty@averillpark.net 518-573-7592
As a small clarification, when you say IP, do you mean over the public internet, or on a private IP network? I'm going to guess the latter, but thought I'd ask... -C On Wed, 5 Sep 2001, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
At 01:11 PM 9/5/2001 -0700, Sean Donelan wrote:
Since there is very little "unique" network equipment in the world now, just about everyone buys equipment from the same vendors. So the question is, Can we learn anything from Citibank's experience. Is there anything about their continuing problems which may be used to improve general network reliability?
I've set up a few ATMs. I have used DSLw+ & STUN on 25xx ciscos and FRADs. I have also seen modems used. The machines themselves all ran OS2, but some banks were talking about moving to NT (this was before Win2K).
When they used IP, they did use cisco, but they did not all use IP. That said, I did most of this many years ago (remember - ianai :), and the "newer" stuff was almost all IP. It would not surprise me if the majority of contemporary ATMs use IP.
It would also not surprise me if Citibank has a lot of old ATMs that use 4.8Kbps modems.
I tried to find out some information from Citibank's web site about the issue, but I didn't see anything.
Somehow I think they would be extremely reluctant to tell anyone what they use inside their ATMs....
-- TTFN, patrick
On Wed, Sep 05, 2001 at 05:53:39PM -0400, Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
I've set up a few ATMs. I have used DSLw+ & STUN on 25xx ciscos and FRADs. I have also seen modems used. The machines themselves all ran OS2, but some banks were talking about moving to NT (this was before Win2K).
Proof of one such case, from a mall in Frisco, Republic of Texas: http://counterintuitive.org/images/crashed-atm.jpg -- Jeff Gehlbach, Concord Communications <jgehlbach@concord.com> Senior Professional Services Consultant, Atlanta ph. 770.384.0184 fax 770.384.0183
Somehow I think they would be extremely reluctant to tell anyone what they use inside their ATMs....
Security through obscurity... most of them are not even encrypted and if they use dial-up lines (instead of dedicated lines) it's often just like the point of sale stuff.. 1200/2400 baud dial-on demand, it takes a few seconds to sync, send a short text string, get a reply auth. On the other side.. I just inherited some hardware encrypted triple-des modems and serial interface cards, as well as a Cylink V.35 hardware encryption 'shim' with valid keys for a large banks wire transfer department... I guess I should ship it to them. From Argentina? (Just kidding, I like being an American Citizen) As a part of other work we do here, we deal with ACH money transfers. The backup method of connection to one institution that we help a customer move millions per day through is a plain text e-mail to an AOL address. We've tried to explain, even refused to send the files, but no clue is in sight. They don't even want them zipped. Secure e-commerce is a farce, even at the corporate giant level. --Mike--
On Wed, Sep 05, 2001 at 06:33:33PM -0400, mike harrison wrote:
Somehow I think they would be extremely reluctant to tell anyone what they use inside their ATMs....
Security through obscurity... most of them are not even encrypted and if they use dial-up lines (instead of dedicated lines) it's often just like the point of sale stuff.. 1200/2400 baud dial-on demand, it takes a few seconds to sync, send a short text string, get a reply auth.
On the other side.. I just inherited some hardware encrypted triple-des modems and serial interface cards, as well as a Cylink V.35 hardware encryption 'shim' with valid keys for a large banks wire transfer department... I guess I should ship it to them. From Argentina? (Just kidding, I like being an American Citizen)
As a part of other work we do here, we deal with ACH money transfers. The backup method of connection to one institution that we help a customer move millions per day through is a plain text e-mail to an AOL address. We've tried to explain, even refused to send the files, but no clue is in sight. They don't even want them zipped. Secure e-commerce is a farce, even at the corporate giant level. --Mike--
I've done work for a certain bank in Minnesota that actually had business customers email their ACH deposit files (plain text) to a Hotmail.com address, where they downloaded it from, and processed it without question (uh, hello?). At one point a company I worked for was actually using them for ACH deposits, and were told that we would have to bring the ACH file on a floppy disk because hotmail claimed that the email had a virus attached. oh yeah, every computer in the building had a modem, connected to a POTS line, waiting to be dialed into. Maybe burying money in mason jars is safer.. Matthew S. Hallacy
On Wed, Sep 05, 2001 at 01:11:00PM -0700, Sean Donelan wrote:
Since there is very little "unique" network equipment in the world now, just about everyone buys equipment from the same vendors. So the question is, Can we learn anything from Citibank's experience. Is there anything about their continuing problems which may be used to improve general network reliability?
I know of at least one major bank that drops the following to their ATMs: - Frame/ATM Frac T1 - ISDN BRI dial backup - 9600 baud X.25 analog dial backup backup If all that fails on a wide scale, you have much larger issues to contend with. Note that there are still a few vendors of ATM switching hardware: Lucent/Ascend Nortel/Bay Cisco/Stratacom Alcatel Marconi/FORE Hitachi NEC Fujitsu ... And this doesn't include all that legacy hardware out there already. *cough cough* Newbridge *cough cough*. --msa
participants (9)
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Brian Whalen -
Chris Woodfield -
Jeff Gehlbach -
Majdi S. Abbas -
Matthew S . Hallacy -
mike harrison -
Patrick W. Gilmore -
Richard Welty -
Sean Donelan