Card skimming on the rise in US, Indonesia and India

This alarming announcement was extracted from the latest European Fraud Update for 2017 published by EAST. The study is based on country crime updates provided by representatives of 19 countries in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), and 5 non-SEPA countries.

International skimming related losses were reported in 45 countries and territories outside of the SEPA and in 9 within SEPA. The top three locations where such losses were reported remain the United States, Indonesia and India.

Card skimming at ATMs was reported by 18 countries. Skimming attacks on other terminal types were reported by 8 countries and 4 countries reported such attacks on unattended payment terminals (UPTs) at retail fuelling stations. One country reported the use of an M3 – Card Reader Internal Skimming Device at a public transport ticket machine, the first time this has been seen.

Furthermore, one country reported a new form of crime, “Cash-in” or “Cash Deposit” fraud, where the criminals deposit fake banknotes into ATMs (where the cash deposit function is available) and then credit their cards or other accounts.

Other fraud tactics revealed by the report include ram raids and ATM burglary, or vishing and phishing. ATM malware and logical security attacks were reported by eight countries all involving the usage (or attempted usage) of black-box devices to allow the unauthorized dispensing of cash.

EAST has recently published seven related ATM Fraud Alerts. To help counter such attacks, Europol published Guidance and Recommendations regarding Logical attacks on ATMs.