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EAST publishes European ATM crime stats in third 2014 update

ATM fraud losses continue to migrate from EMV-enabled areas in Europe to non-EMV countries — and the bulk of them continue to occur in the US.

November 25, 2014

EAST has published its third ATM crime update for 2014. A news release from the European watchdog group said that card skimming at ATMs was reported by 16 of 19 reporting countries, with increases reported in two countries and decreases in seven countries.

One country reported the reappearance of skimmers at ATMs with dip card readers; two reported card data compromise through wire-tapping or eavesdropping. The use of sidebars to conceal cameras for PIN compromise appears to be on the rise.

European fraud countermeasures such as geoblocking, fraud monitoring capabilities and fraud detection continue to improve; most ATM-related card-skimming losses occurred in 46 countries and territories outside European EMV liability shift areas, EAST said. The U.S. remains the top location for such losses, followed by Indonesia and Thailand.

Cash trapping incidents appear to be on the increase and were reported by 14 countries. One country reported the emergence of a new variant — trapping cash deposited at ATMs with a banknote recycling function.

Five countries reported transaction reversal fraud incidents. Five also reported card trapping incidents.

Three countries reported ATM malware cash-out (or ‘jackpotting’) incidents. In two of the countries the malware was recognized as the Backdoor.Padpin Trojan.

Ram raids and ATM burglary were reported by eight countries, with one reporting increases. Eight countries reported explosive gas attacks and one of them also reported attacks on ATMs using solid explosives.

European law enforcement groups continued to cooperate their efforts to smash gangs involved in ATM crime. On July 16, an international organized cybercrime network was successfully taken down in Romania and France with the support of in close cooperation with the European Cybercrime Centre at Europol.

The network was suspected crimes including malware attacks on international non-cash payment systems, illegal worldwide financial transactions and money transfers, card skimming, money laundering, and drug trafficking.

On Sept. 30, Bulgarian and Spanish judicial and law enforcement authorities, working with EC3 at Europol, dismantled a significant Bulgarian organized crime network suspected of large scale ATM skimming, electronic payment fraud and forgery.

EAST publishes the European Fraud Update three times a year. The current report is based on country crime updates from 17 countries in the Single Euro Payments Area, and two non-SEPA countries, including:

Austria, Czech Republic; Finland; France; Germany; Hungary; Ireland; Italy; Liechtenstein; the Netherlands; Norway; Portugal; Romania; Russia; Spain; Sweden; Switzerland; the United Kingdom; and Ukraine.