The Automated Teller Machine (ATM) has been around since the 1960s, in which, just the concept of having a cash machine, that functions without a human operator, and spits out cash to those with the appropriate ATM credentials, seems both genius and revolutionary because there are plenty of people that just want to get access to cash at all hours of the day, and they don’t want to go through the trouble of having to enter into the bank to do that, of which, ATMs have successfully resolved that problem for them.
The salient issue though with ATMs, is that for decades upon decades, banking institutions have been a target for thieves, because as it has been said, ”that's where the money is.” Indeed, when it comes to ATMs, those machines can be filled up with $100,000 in cash, so there is plenty of money to be got, by those that have the intention to do so. Further to the point, the most vulnerable ATMs are never going to be those that are part and parcel of a bank building which typically is pretty secure as well as being quite visible, but rather it is going to be those ATMs that are standalone, in which, all four sides of that ATM are exposed to the outside, and of which, their location is typically more isolated than an actual bank.
So too, physical banks are not only more secure but may also engage outside security to watch their bank; whereas, we find that standalone ATMs aren’t going to have that same sort of attention, because of the cost of monitoring standalone ATMs with physical security is just going to be prohibitive, which indicates that whatever security devices that there are on a given standalone ATM, will have to be sufficient to stop criminal activity – thus signifying that those that are intent with the tampering of a standalone ATM are provided with the opportunity to study their target and come up with a plan of attack, or multiple plans because the ATM is not only in plain sight but also because ATMs are designed in a way that people in the know, have the definite capability of compromising those machines.
The one thing about America is that there are plenty of people who aren’t really interested in working for a living, but would rather figure out a way to get money or its equivalency by whatever means works for them. When it comes to ATMs, they recognize that ATMs will dispense cash, again and again, as long as the ATM card has the right credentials to convince the machine that all is right. This signifies that opportunistic criminals have multiple ways to try to fool an ATM, of which, they know that there is no human presence to observe them, but only a camera embedded in the machine, which thus provides them with a fair amount of time to ply their trade.
Indeed, the convenience of ATMs is a great benefit to the general public, who can thus withdraw cash at any time of the day or night, but the fact that these are machines, that contain a lot of cash, provides a constant temptation for those that wish to find a way to exploit such to their own benefit