News

EAST publishes European ATM crime stats

March 6, 2006

PERTH, England - The European ATM Security Team, EAST, which is supported by Europol and includes representation from 23 European states, published its most recent report on European ATM crime in 2005, according to a news release.

EAST, a group that combats cross-border ATM-related fraud in Europe, bases its findings on an estimated 325,000 ATMs that it follows in 27 European countries.

According to the report, fraud, especially skimming, remains the biggest ATM crime in most countries. And card skimming, with 3,143 reported attacks, resulted in losses of nearly 44 million euros (U.S. $52.3 million) across Europe.

The number of skimming attacks has dropped by 20 percent from 2004, and related losses are down by 43 percent. Those drops are likely related to Europe's implementation of anti-fraud devices and the migration of more than 50 percent of European ATM chip readers to EMV.

"This massive investment in technology significantly improves security, and will maintain confidence in the system," said EAST coordinator Lachlan Gunn.

Also of concern are other types of fraud, such as card trapping, cash trapping and transaction reversal fraud.

Eight-hundred and five such cases were reported in 2005, with reported losses of just less than 2 million euros (U.S. $2.37 million).

However, while card trapping is down, EAST found that cash trapping and transaction reversal seem to be up. (To trap cash the criminals fix a device at the cash dispensing slot which removes the cash after a genuine cash withdrawal transaction and hides it from the customer.)

EAST also reports more than 1,572 other attacks against European ATMs in 2005, primarily ram raids, which include attempts to ATMs to access the safes housed inside.

Losses of almost 17 million euros (U.S. $20.2 million) have been reported from ram raids. (Read also, A renewed interest in alarms that protect hardware, users.)

Attacks using gas or explosives to blow open safes also are increasing in a number of countries.