Yup....it looks like the banking industry has gone off the deep end...

Within three years, most bank machines that dispense cash will run on the Windows operating system, according to a study published last week.

By 2005, 65 percent of bank ATMs (not including free-standing machines in places like convenience stores and casinos) in the United States will use a stripped-down version of Windows. About 12 percent of the machines will use the operating system by the end of this year, according to Gwenn Bezard, an analyst at market researcher Celent.
"Because we are seeing so many mergers and acquisitions in the last few years, you have large banks running a fleet of ATM hardware," Bezard said. "With open technologies it is easier to run different types of hardware on the same software."
OPEN TECHNOLOGIES??? What planet is this guy from? Windows is DEFINITELY not an open technology, except from a security standpoint. Which brings me to my next point...

"What Microsoft actually sells to the banks for ATM use is a cut-down version of Windows that doesn't contain things like Web servers," said Ross Anderson, a researcher in Cambridge, England, and author of Security Engineering. "They have tried to cut out the unnecessary rubbish that clutters up the typical PC. How good a job they've done, I just don't know.... So we definitely can't rule out the possibility that someone in the future writes a Slammer-style worm that causes thousands of ATMs to start spewing out cash."
This is starting to scare me...

"When you think about an ATM machine, it is basically a vault," Schneier said. "There is inherent security there."
Yeah...and they're going to make Windows the combination lock to that vault. I'm going to Walmart to buy a bunch of Mason Jars and start banking the way my grandparents did....all I need is a shovel and a decent sized backyard.

Original article found here.