London, United Kingdom; Cape Town, South Africa, & Brookings, SD, USA - August 2005
The Global ATM Security Alliance (www.globalasa.com) has published its first international ATM crime report, highlighting new intelligence such as times of the day when ATM crimes are most likely to occur and which types of locations are subject to the most attacks.
The crime report was based on an analysis of over 3,000 ATM crimes recorded on GASA’s web-located Cognito crime data managament system from 2004-2005. The crimes were reported in Canada, USA, Europe and the United Kingdom. Cognito, which generates fraud alerts as well as crime reports, has its own online Fraud library with white papers, alerts, reports, articles, powerpoint presentations and an Inventory of ATM Scams and Crimes. The system is managed by the South African Fraud Prevention Services (http://www.safps.org.za) on behalf of GASA.
A data management system like Cognito converts incident information into strategically useful intelligence. GASA’s first ATM crime report highlights that well over one third of ATM crimes on the system occurred between 6pm and 9pm - this period is therefore a higher risk time for ATMs. The report also shows that recent ATM and POS crimes occur at higher-than-average rates in bank branches/bank lobbies and petrol forecourts.
GASA recommends that countering skimming and the new source of ATM fraud through phishing should be a current ATM security priority.
“Cognito should not just be seen as a storehouse for crime data, but needs to supply value-added services like global fraud alerts, crime trend reports, countermeasures and security solutions for specific ATM crimes, as well as informative reading material. Only by bringing together quantitative data and qualitative information will Cognito succeed in helping security practitioners, law enforcement agencies and other users gain the big picture of ATM crime,” commented Mike Lee, CEO of ATMIA and founder of GASA.
For more information on Cognito or GASA, please contact Mike Lee at mike@atmia.com.
About the Global ATM Security Alliance:
www.globalasa.com
The Global ATM Security Alliance (GASA) was formed by ATMIA (www.atmia.com) in June 2003 to protect the industry from the growing problem of cross-border ATM crime and card fraud. It is made up of law enforcement and fraud prevention agencies, card schemes like Visa and MasterCard, ATM networks, industry associations, manufacturers, Cash in Transit groups and security consultancies, with representation from United Kingdom, USA, Europe, South Africa, South America, Canada, Australia and India. Its main projects include: the creation of a global ATM crime database, a global fraud alert system, best practice manuals for the whole ATM security lifecycle, from cardholder security to cyber security, and a communications programme.