Europol supports Geo-Blocking

Europol has just published a ‘Situation Report on Payment Card Fraud in the European Union’ to coincide with the launch of the European Cyber Crime Centre (EC3).  The report which covers 2012, highlights that although overall EU payment card fraud has fallen due to the introduction of EMV (Chip and PIN), whilst the number of payment cards (debit and credit) has risen to over 726 million, international losses (fraud losses outside the EU) continue to rise - and mainly in the USA.  The report states that European Organised Crime Groups (OCGs) are making around 1.5 billion euros annually from payment card fraud.

Regional card blocking (geo-blocking) - the basic facts

In several posts I have touched on regional card blocking, often known as geo-blocking.  What is it? Why is it done? How is it done? Where is it done? Does it work? In this post I will try to briefly answer these questions.

What is Geo-blocking?
Many European card-issuers have spent a lot of money issuing EMV (Chip and PIN) compliant cards. When a card present payment transaction takes place the terminal reads the EMV chip on the card, while it is authenticated by the cardholder's PIN (either online or offline).  Geo-blocking is when an EMV card issuer blocks its cards from being used in certain countries or regions where magnetic stripe transactions are routinely performed.  All EMV cards are blocked unless they are 'white-listed' (i.e. the card holder intends to travel to a high risk country/region).

Cash trapping continues in Europe, while skimming attacks decrease

The European ATM Security Team (EAST) has just published another Fraud Update (3/2011). According to this most of the reporting countries continue to see an increase in cash trapping incidents, a trend reported by EAST in its European ATM Crime Report covering the period January to June 2011, something that I covered in a related post last month, which also gives some background information on the crime.

Attacks are most prevalent against one type of ATM and upgrades to its cash dispenser are still being reported as 100% effective in preventing such attacks.  The upgrade is visible, however, and this has led to displacement with attacks shifting to ATMs that have not been upgraded.