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The multimarket phenomenon of ATM gas and explosive attacks in Europe

November 26, 2013 by Flora Hamilton — European Manager, ATMIA

The 13th annual ATM Security conference in October provided a lively platform to review and discuss the alarming growth in ATM gas and explosive attacks in Europe.

This year has witnessed the introduction of such attacks for the first time in the U.K. along with a huge increase in their numbers in France. In Italy and the Netherlands, which have been suffering from this crime for some years now, criminals continue to migrate from gas to solid explosives to increase their chances of a successful attack. And in Germany, 2013 saw attacks move eastward to the capital, Berlin, for the first time.  

The conference, organized annually by ATMIA and RBR, also provided a global perspective on gas and explosive attacks in case studies from Brazil and South Africa.  

The examples of success from these presentations can be summarized in a set of key messages for the European ATM industry. 

Firstly the ATM operator needs to develop a multilayered approach to security measures — there is no one magic solution for preventing these gas and explosive attacks. 

Secondly, communications — especially internal communications up through the hierarchy of financial institutions — is vital to ensuring the necessary security budgets.

It is worthy of note that in all case studies, ROI could not be measured in terms of "security expenditure vs. saved cash losses or building damage," but had to be viewed as a means to protect the organization's brand and the public's trust in it.   

Thirdly, cooperation with law enforcement is a vital component. The ATM operator must work with authorities in a detailed post-attack investigation in order to ensure that law enforcement can establish the particular modus operandi and have every vital piece of evidence to pursue the criminals — firstly to make arrests, and then later to prosecute the case in court.

It is in the court where the ATM industry needs another strong ally so that properly severe sentences can be handed down to those found guilty of attacks. We learned that success in reducing these crimes in South Africa can be linked directly to increased prosecution of mining companies found to be remiss in the safekeeping of their stocks of explosive materials.  

It was most timely that ATMIA Europe launched the translated versions (in French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish) of its recently published best practice manual, "Preventing ATM Gas and Explosive Attacks," at the conference.

Version two of this manual is already in the pipeline for the first quarter of 2014, as we identify more global case studies that demonstrate methods for successfully countering these attacks.

ATMIA Europe is already in dialogue with Europol to encourage the widespread education of national law enforcement across the region, and we are hopeful of setting a special training day with them in 2014.

ATMIA's European task force and the association's steering committee also will look to expand their directory of vendor solutions and share across national boundaries those solutions that have been developed in some markets with a longer experience of gas and explosive attacks. 

Until we see a reversal in the current trend of Europe's "cash criminals" migrating to the use of gas and solid explosives to gain access to the ATM safe, this European task force will continue to investigate and share new knowledge that can arm the ATM operator against these attacks.

If you missed this year's conference, please mark your calendar for the 14th annual ATM Security conference on Oct. 14 and 15, 2014.

An executive summary for the current best practice manuals can be downloaded in six languages from the ATMIA online library.

Read more about security.

About Flora Hamilton

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ATM Industry Association (ATMIA)

The ATM Industry Association, founded in 1997, is a global non-profit trade association with over 10,500 members in 65 countries. The membership base covers the full range of this worldwide industry comprising over 2.2 million installed ATMs.

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