European Agencies and ATM Security.

On June 10th, Europol and ATM Security Team reiterated their collaboration in contrasting the so-called “payment crimes”, during one of the three annual meetings of the Team, held to Europol Headquarters in The Hague. “Security team” means EAST, the European ATM Security Team, a European non-profit organization, whose task is to collect and disseminate information to and from installe  rs and bank ATM networks (ATM = Automated Teller Machine).

Europol Centre against Cybercrime (EC3) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with EAST, in order to further strengthen cooperation in the fight against all forms of crime linked to ATM cards and credit cards, including virtual fraud, i.e. those that are committed in the absence of normal magnetic supports, by malware or other hi-tech techinques, or by physical attacks to ATMs themselves.

The MoU will allow to exchange data and strategic information, between the Agency and the EAST, meaning that one of the three annual meetings of the same team will be always held at the Europol headquarters in The Hague, just as has happened for the first time in the abovementioned cisrcumstance.

Beyond the statements made by leaders of the two organizations, Europol has recognized the seriousness of the physical or virtual attacks to ATM systems, and has prepared a document containing guidelines about the threat. The document (the drafting was coordinated by the EAST) will be disclosed in the coming days and is an example of a coordinated response between security agencies and the world of finance banking, aimed to contrast the emerging and increasingly worrying growth of some criminal phenomena such as, for example, the “skimming”.

For non-experts, we point out that “skimmers” are devices that can read the magnetic strip of debit cards and credit cards, directly into the ATM slots. Obviously, the very high nanotechnology of these “readers”, is associated with the use of illegally concealed cameras, positioned in such a way to spy on the finger movements of the money pickers, recording the numbers that form the PIN sequence.