ATM Machines Essay Sample

ATM’s refer to mountable machines that interact with users through voice prompts and are mostly used by financial institutions such as banks, to dispense money to its customers from mobile locations. An Automated Teller Machine is an intelligent machine that is hinged into banking networks and used in dispensing cash or to allow people to deposit money into their accounts. These machines rely on an authorization mechanism that allows users to access their money by imputing certain passwords mainly random mix of numbers. It is connected to the banks network and communicates in real-time with the account data details by querying information through a validation mechanism after requesting for a personal identification number (PIN). The personal identification numbers are encrypted with a terminal master key that allows individuals to maintain the confidentiality of their security numbers.
These machines require a very high level of confidentiality in order to prevent cases of fraud to its customers. Confidentiality is defined as the act of protecting data from unauthorized access, by maintaining disclosure to information to only legitimate users (Cuzzocrea et al 243). And as such, there are encryption mechanisms that the machines use in order to ensure that keyed in PIN numbers are encrypted in order to prevent any straying eyes from capturing the PIN numbers. This is addressed through some encoding mechanisms, through certain algorithms such as the 3DES or AES, which ensure that the characters being input are transformed into hidden characters that cannot be deciphered by a plain eye. Confidentiality requirements ensure that personal financial data remains only known to the account holder, which can only be addressed through the use of encrypted PIN numbers. On the other hand, integrity requirements for ATM's are high, especially when customers and the financial institutions need correct financial information. Integrity can be referred to a state in which information is valid and that no entries are missing (Hershey and Strous 86). This is because misrepresentations of the same could lead to loss due to instances of dishonesty in transactions and integrity of financial data, and as such high levels of integrity need to be maintained at all times. Integrity requirements are maintained by ensuring that correct information is presented by the ATM's at all times, correct mapping of fingerprints to each user as well as the personal identification numbers used by each and every user. Correct presentation of financial information is key to the sustainability of financial institutions, which can be enhanced by maintaining that data is up-to-date. On the other hand, integrity is maintained when the various input codes work as expected, in order to deter unauthorized access by people on specific information.
Availability is defined as the probability of a system being reachable and working at its best at every given time (Jarke 305). The availability of these machines gives people the capability of having their money at any given time. This is maintained by a robust network that also has redundant connections to these systems to help sustain the availability in emergency cases. Availability is of high level to both customers and financial institutions, in order to enable them transact their business as well as maintain their customers.
The three aspects of confidentiality, integrity and availability are important in information systems. There is a need to address these factors in order to maintain an optimum use in the use of systems.

Works Cited

Biene-Hershey, Margaret E, and Leon Strous. Integrity and Internal Control in Information Systems: Strategic Views on the Need for Control : Ifip Tc11 Wg11.5 Third Working Conference on Integrity and Internal Control in Information Systems, November 18-19, 1999, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000. Print.
Cuzzocrea, Alfredo, Christian Kittl, Dimitris E. Simos, Edgar R. Weippl, and Lida Xu. Availability, Reliability, and Security in Information Systems and Hci: Ifip Wg 8.4, 8.9, Tc 5 International Cross-Domain Conference, Cd-Ares 2013, Regensburg, Germany, September 2-6, 2013 : Proceedings. , 2013. Web.
Jarke, Matthias. Advanced Information Systems Engineering: 26th International Conference, Caise 2014, Thessaloniki, Greece, June 16-20, 2014. Proceedings. , 2014. Web.