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GASA publishes first international ATM crime report

August 22, 2005

LONDON - The Global ATM Security Alliance, a division of the ATM Industry Associaiton, has published its first international ATM crime report, highlighting new intelligence that includes times of the day and in which locations ATM crimes are most likely to occur.

According to a news release, the crime report was based on analysis of more than 3,000 ATM crimes recorded on GASA's Cognito crime data managament system from 2004 to 2005. The crimes were reported in Canada, the United States, Europe and the United Kingdom.

Cognito, which generates fraud alerts as well as crime reports, has an online fraud library that provides access to white papers, alerts, reports, articles, Powerpoint presentations, and includes an inventory of ATM scams and crimes.

The system is managed by the South African Fraud Prevention Services on behalf of GASA.

More than one-third of ATM crimes on the system occurred between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., according to the report. The report also shows that recent ATM and POS crimes occur at higher-than-average rates in bank branches/bank lobbies and petrol forecourts.

GASA recommends that measures to counter skimming and phishing be ATM security priorities.

"Cognito should not just be seen as a storehouse for crime data, but needs to supply value-added services like global fraud alerts, crime trend reports, countermeasures and security solutions for specific ATM crimes, as well as be informative reading material," said Mike Lee, ATMIA's chief executive and founder of GASA. "Only by bringing together quantitative data and qualitative information will Cognito succeed in helping security practitioners, law enforcement agencies and other users gain the big picture of ATM crime."

For more information on Cognito or GASA, contact Mike Lee.

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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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