EAST European Crime Report Summary– H1 2024

EAST has just published a European Payment Terminal Crime Report covering H1 2024 which highlights a rise in terminal related fraud attacks.

Terminal related fraud attacks were up 96% (from 3,021 to 5,913 incidents).  This increase was primarily due to a rise in card and cash trapping at ATMs. Card trapping attacks increased by 164% (from 769 to 2,030 incidents) and cash trapping attacks increased by 99% (from 1,805 to 3,586 incidents). Relay attacks have started again with 159 cases reported during the 6-month period.  The successful attacks resulted in cash out at ATMs. Total losses of €68 million were reported, down 35% from the €105 million reported in H1 2023.  Most losses remain international issuer losses due to card skimming, which were €65 million.

EAST Executive Director Lachlan Gunn said, “Due to the strength of the payment system criminals are always on the lookout for creative ways to steal cash.  ATM card and cash trapping attacks give them the opportunity to exploit genuine transactions, as do relay attacks, which are much more complex.  Our Expert Group on All Terminal Fraud (EGAF) continues to monitor and analyse these attacks, with close cooperation between industry partners and law enforcement in the affected countries.”

ATM malware and logical attacks were down 25% (from 4 to 3) and all of the reported attacks were black box attacks. A black box attack is the connection of an unauthorised device which sends dispense commands directly to the ATM cash dispenser, to ‘cash-out’ or ‘jackpot’ the ATM.  Most such attacks remain unsuccessful, and no losses were reported.  Europol, supported by EAST EGAF, has published guidelines to help the industry and law enforcement counter the ATM Logical Attack threat.  These were first produced in 2015 and updated in 2022.  It is believed that the adoption by the industry of the recommendations has helped to drive down attacks.

ATM related physical attacks were up 20% (from 1,931 to 2,323 incidents).  Within this total, ATM explosive attacks (including explosive gas and solid explosive attacks) were down 21% (from 378 to 298 incidents) and attacks due to ATM Theft (Rip-out)/ATM burglary (In-situ) were up 2% (from 249 to 255 incidents).  Losses due to ATM related physical attacks were €6 million, a 58% increase from the €3.8 million reported during H1 2023. 63% of these losses were due to explosive attacks, which were up 73% from €2.2 million to €3.8 million.  While on average around 40% of such attacks do not result in cash loss, the loss figures shown do not take into account collateral damage to equipment or buildings, which can be significant and often exceeds the value of the cash lost in successful attacks.

A summary of the report statistics under the main headings is available on the EAST website.

Source:

Terminal fraud attacks increase in Europe