News

EAST releases fraud report for first half of 2012

July 23, 2012

The European ATM Security Team (EAST) has published its second European Fraud Update of the year. The report includes statistics from January through June of 2012, and is based on updates provided by representatives of 21 countries in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), and three non-SEPA countries.

Skimming attacks at ATMs remain an issue for all but two of countries, with eight countries reporting increases, and three reporting decreases. Higher quality and more efficient skimming devices are being discovered on machines.

The continued migration of fraud losses away from EMV smart chip liability shift areas continues. In the first half of the year, such losses were reported in 46 countries and territories outside of the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and in 11 countries within SEPA.

The U.S. remains the top location for such losses, followed by Peru, Mexico and Brazil. Regional card blocking (done by card issuers who bar the use of domestic payment cards outside of EMV chip liability shift areas) continues to be successful, with six countries now reporting some form of geo-blocking.

Cash trapping incidents were reported by 13 countries, down from 17 in the previous EAST Fraud Update. This decrease is believed to be due to the roll out of countermeasures. Increasing use of a new cash trap variant has been reported, often in conjunction with another type of fraud; razor edge spring traps are still widely used, as well.

Ram raids and ATM burglary were reported by nine countries, and explosive gas attacks by six countries. As a countermeasure European countries continue their rollout of banknote degradation systems.

For more on this topic, visit the trends/statistics research center.