Article

Thieves launch more skimming attacks at European ATMs, but the haul is smaller

Card-skimming attacks at European ATMs increased from January through June compared with the same six-month period last year.

October 12, 2010

Card-skimming attacks at European ATMs increased from January through June compared with the same six-month period last year, but financial losses from skimming attacks dropped significantly, reports the European ATM Security Team.

From January through June, there were 5,743 ATM-skimming attacks, up 24 percent compared with 4,629 attacks during the same period last year, said Lachlan Gunn, coordinator of the European ATM Security Team (EAST), which is based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

"This is the largest number of such attacks reported in a six-month period since EAST first began recording these statistics in 2004, although not all of the countries are reporting increases," Gunn said.

At the same time ATM skimming attacks jumped, loot stolen during the thefts declined. For the same six-month period, skimming losses fell to 144 million euros (U.S.$201 million) from 156 million euros (U.S.$217 million), Gunn said. He added that losses from ATM skimming attacks have fallen for the last five reporting periods

So why are skimming attacks up, but the amount of money stolen down? "That's a hard one," said Gunn, "The criminals are working harder for less reward."

The European ATM Security Team attributed the drop in cash stolen from ATMs to the effectiveness of the EMV rollout as compromised European cards are increasingly being used outside of the 31 countries that are members of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), said the report titled "European ATM Crime Report 2010: Period January to June." The European ATM Security Team estimates there are 369,656 ATMs in Europe that are EMV compliant, which equals 95 percent of the overall total of 388,482 ATMs in 2010's first half located in the 31 countries that are SEPA members. Twenty-four SEPA countries send representatives to EAST.

The report noted that domestic losses from national cards within national borders fell 41 percent to 24 million euros during 2010's first six months, compared with 41 million euros for the same period last year. ATM skimming with fraudulent cards, however, is moving to other areas outside of Europe, where EMV has not been implemented, the report said. In those areas, ATM skimming attacks rose 4 percent to 119 million euros from 114 million euros compared with the same six-month period last year.

The European ATM Security Team gathered its data from 22 of 25 countries that are EAST members (24 countries are in the Single Euro Payments Area. Russia is the 25th country, but its data is not used in this report). The 22 countries have an installed ATM installed base of 360,721 ATMs.

The countries are: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

France, Germany, the U.K., Spain and Italy have a joint total of 276,698 ATMs, which is 71 percent of the European total of ATMs.