PoS Malware Hits Avanti Payment Kiosks

Hackers Steal Payment Card and Biometric Data From Avanti Kiosks

Micro markets solutions provider Avanti Markets has informed customers that their personal, payment card and biometric data may have been stolen by cybercriminals who managed to infect some of its kiosks with malware.

According to the company, which serves 1.6 million customers across 46 U.S. states, the malware was designed to harvest information such as cardholder name, credit and debit card number, and expiration date.

Depending on how the kiosk was configured and the service used by the customer, the malware may have also stolen names, email addresses and even biometric information in the case of customers who utilized the fingerprint scanner to pay for their items.

Avanti said the breach was discovered on July 4 and its internal response team has taken measures to secure systems, including changing passwords. Payment processing systems have been shut down at some locations while the malware is being removed. The company has notified law enforcement and it plans on offering credit monitoring services to affected individuals.

“We continue to assess and modify our privacy and data security policies and procedures to prevent similar situations from occurring. For instance, we are in the middle of implementing an end to end encryption solution for all of our kiosks, and are working on expediting that implementation,” Avanti told customers. “Theft of data and similar incidents are difficult to prevent in all instances, however, we will be reviewing our systems and making improvements where we can to minimize the chances of this happening again.”

While the firm has not named the piece of malware used in the attack, security blogger Brian Krebs revealed that a July 7 blog post from Risk Analytics describing a PoSeidon (FindPOS) infection on a break room vending kiosk at a customer’s office was actually part of the Avanti campaign.

“This is a textbook example of an Internet of Things (IoT) threat: A network-connected device, controlled and maintained by a third party, which cannot be easily patched, audited, or controlled by your own IT staff,” said Risk Analytics’ Noah Dunker.

The security firm detected the malware on its customer’s network using known indicators of compromise (IoC) for PoSeidon.

Related Reading: Kmart Payment Systems Infected With Malware

Related Reading: GameStop Confirms Payment Card Breach

Related Reading: Over 200 Brooks Brothers Stores Hit by Payment Card Breach