Automated teller machines are literally becoming more sensitive to criminals' efforts to tamper with them.
NCR Corp.'s new Personas M Series ATMs can detect things that criminals might attach to them - such as tiny cameras to record customers' PINs or readers attached to the card slot to download information from a magnetic stripe.
Claire Shufflebotham, the global marketing manager for security solutions at the Dayton, Ohio, company, said the new product responds to a threat that has been around awhile but is growing: criminals who tamper with ATMs to steal card information, PINs, or cash.
Even though ATM fraud is relatively small compared with other card-related theft, it has risen from last year, Ms. Shufflebotham said. It is "a global industry problem," she said.
NCR's sensor technology, which it calls Intelligent Fraud Detection, can recognize metals, plastics, composites, and wood.
(Ms. Shufflebotham said thieves sometimes stick a hard-to-notice piece of wood into an ATM to prevent it from dispensing cash. When the customer abandons the transaction or goes to find a bank employee to complete it, the criminal removes the wood - and the money.)
A Personas machine "has detection technology built into it" that can pick up any alteration to its face, Ms. Shufflebotham said. The model, now available in Asia and Europe, will soon be available in the United States too.
ATM fraud has been fairly stable in this country, according to a report published last July by the Boston market research firm Celent Communications LLC. The U.S. banking industry typically reports losses of $50 million to $60 million a year from ATM fraud, Celent said.
But such fraud has been surging in the United Kingdom, according to the Association for Payment Clearing Services, the U.K. trade association for payments. Losses last year jumped 81%, it reported, to $143 million.
Ms. Shufflebotham said that because organized crime is involved in a lot of ATM fraud, the incidence can rise quickly when vulnerabilities are discovered.
NCR has also developed an upgrade kit to add sensor technology to existing machines, and banks worldwide have shown interest, Ms. Shufflebotham said.
Diebold Inc. of North Canton, Ohio, NCR's biggest rival in ATM manufacturing, has incorporated similar ideas in its Opteva ATM line, said Anna C. Istnick, Diebold's senior product marketing manager.
"There are sensors on every module" of the ATM, and tampering triggers a warning, as it does on NCR's machines, Ms. Istnick said.
Both companies let ATM owners decide whether the machines should shut down automatically when a possible threat is detected.
Avivah Litan, the vice president of payments and fraud for the Stamford, Conn., market research firm Gartner Inc., said ATM theft is a growing problem and has compromised at least two bank networks in recent months.
"We're seeing something very frightening," Ms. Litan said. There are "holes in the system, and if the banks don't have some protection they'll get hurt."
Ms. Istnick at Diebold said staying ahead of the perpetrators is a constant battle. "If you build a 10-foot wall, they're going to bring a 12-foot ladder," she said.
