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The proliferation of EMV-compliant ATMs across Europe has reduced card-skimming incidents significantly and the amount of euros thieves steal through card skimming. But the fraud-fighting technology's success has encouraged thieves to try something new: card trapping, according to the European ATM Crime Report released last Wednesday.
Card trapping occurs when a cardholder swipes his card at an ATM, and a cover thieves place on the machine keeps the card. Crooks later remove the trapped card with a wire, referred to as a "Lebanese Loop," or a pair of tweezers, Lachlan Gunn, coordinator of the European ATM Security Team in Edinburgh, Scotland, tells ATM&Debit News.
Europeans use chip-and-PIN EMV technology to secure transactions, and cardholders type in a four-digit PIN for purchases and ATM withdrawals. The card's chip verifies the PIN, Gunn says.
Card trappers use a variety of methods to obtain PINs, such as appearing to be help by suggesting to the cardholder that reentering his PIN might release the card. The repeated action, however, enables the thief to secure the PIN information, Gunn says.
Thieves often also install small cameras near ATM keypads to record PINs, he adds.
Once thieves secure the PIN and remove the trapped card from the ATM, they can go to any ATM and withdraw funds from the cardholder's checking account, and they can continue to do so until the cardholder reports to his bank that an ATM kept the card or the account runs out of money, Gunn adds.
Some 1,045 card-trapping incidents occurred between January and June of this year, up 641% from 141 incidents during the same period last year, Gunn says. Losses caused by card trapping reached 5.8 million euros (US$8.65 million), up dramatically from 590,000 euros a year ago.
"You're not talking big losses compared with skimming, but we're identifying a new trend," Gunn says.
While card trapping is on the rise throughout Europe, card skimming is headed in the opposite direction.
During the first six months of this year, 4,629 ATM card-skimming incidents occurred, down 19% from 5,693 during the same period in 2008, Gunn says. This year's incidents resulted in the loss of 156 million euros, down 30% from 222 million euros a year ago, Gunn says.
"This indicates that the EMV rollout at ATMs in Europe is helping to reduce skimming losses," Gunn says.
Some 392,917 ATMs are deployed in 31 European countries, and 92% of the machines are EMV-complaint, meaning they read the chip on the cardholder's card, Gunn says. The cardholder also has to type in a four-digit PIN.
EMV, which is managed by EMV Co. LLC, is the global standard for credit and debit cards based on chip card technology. By November 2010, 100% of the ATMs deployed throughout Europe are required to be EMV-complaint, Gunn says.
Twenty countries, including Germany, France, Italy, Ireland, the United Kingdom and France, which have a combined total of 356,302 ATMs within their borders, reported their findings to the European ATM Security Team for the organization's crime report.
The European ATM Security Team is a not-for-profit organization. ATM
