BROOKINGS, S.D.and CAPE TOWN, South Africa - The Global ATM Security Alliance (GASA), founded a year ago by the ATM Industry Association, has notched up significant successes in the battle against ATM crime.
According to a news release, GASA has introduced international cardholder security tips, an ATM physical security best practice manual, an international ATM crime directory, an ATM crime talking points document and an international glossary of ATM terms.
In August, the alliance will publish its best practice manuals for PIN and encryption security management, ATM transactional security and cyber security, completing the security lifecycle for the ATM.
Participants in the project, numbering more than 60, include law enforcement agencies, financial institutions, ATM network processors, bankers' associations, manufacturers and industry organizations in North America, South America, the United Kingdom, Europe, Africa and Australia/Asia.
GASA has launched its global Data Management System (DMS) and Crime Information System (CIS), with more than 40 Users registered for it. So far, ATM crime data from the UK and U.S. has been inputted into the system, which can generate fraud alerts; create crime trends reports based on pre-defined search criteria such as crime category, type of location and criminal modus operandi; and forecast crime, based on probabilities derived from existing trends.
The system uses proprietary worldwide objects (WWO) technology, in which each piece of data is an object in its own right which has been encrypted for added security. In addition, each object links to every other object in the system with high-speed "intelligent" processing power.
"Such robustness is ideal for a security data management system, " said Mike Lee, CEO of ATMIA and founder of GASA. "To be able to generate fraud alerts from the global crime data and to do crime forecasting of trends will give the industry a proactive crime-fighting tool of great value. In addition, our CIS will be an education tool for law enforcement. It will help us share crime counter-measures worldwide."
