EAST Publishes European Fraud Update 3-2013

The European ATM Security Team (EAST) has just published its third European Fraud Update for 2013. This is based on country crime updates given by representatives of 19 countries in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), and 3 non-SEPA countries, at the 31st EAST meeting held at Equens SE in Utrecht on 9th October 2013.

Skimming at ATMs was reported by 20 countries, with increases reported by 8 countries and decreases by 6 countries. The usage of fake ATMs for card and PIN compromise has been reported, the first time such a method has been seen by an EAST National Member, and skimming devices placed on ATMs with dip readers appear to be becoming more prevalent.

ATM explosive attacks and low tech fraud incidents increase in Europe

The European ATM Security Team (EAST) has just published a European ATM Crime Report covering the first six months of 2013.  This shows significant rises in both low tech fraud incidents and ATM explosive attacks, while card skimming incidents fell again.

The overall increase in low tech fraud incidents is due to a surge in the number of cash trapping and transaction reversal fraud incidents.  7,885 such incidents were reported, up 77% from the 4,464 incidents reported in H1 2012.  While both these attack types can succeed in the EMV environment, as normal transactions take place on EMV cards, criminals get less from them than from high tech skimming attacks. The chart below shows an analysis of the overall figures since 2005.