The European ATM Security Team (EAST) has just published its first Fraud Update for 2011. This is based on country crime updates given by representatives of 15 countries in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and 2 non-SEPA countries at the 23rd EAST meeting held in Helsinki, Finland on 9th February 2011.
While ATM skimming incidents appear to be decreasing overall (although increases were reported by 7 countries), cash trapping incidents are on the rise across Europe with 8 countries reporting such attacks, compared with just 3 at the previous EAST meeting. In some cases several ATMs were attacked simultaneously and the most common device used was the 'mouse trap'.
Typically a cash trap will be installed at the cash dispenser shutter so that when a cardholder makes a cash withdrawal, the transaction is completed as normal, but the cash does not appear. It is retained by the trap, which is removed by the criminals after the card holder has left the ATM.
This seems to indicate a shift by some criminals away from payment card fraud to physical theft, which could be another indication of the effectiveness of the shift within SEPA to EMV (Chip and PIN) cards and terminals.
You can read the full press release on the EAST Website and subscribers to the EAST Website can download the full Fraud Update which includes some images.
For a more recent blog post on this topic see ATM cash trapping attacks surge in Europe
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