Industry concern over ATM crime is peaking

Many of you have probably seen the numbers on increasing ATM crime incidents. From 2019 to 2022 an increase of 600%. Year over year for 2021 to 2022 alone, it was 165%. Almost every week, we hear a news report about an ATM attack somewhere in the U.S. The attention and concern that our industry is paying to the problems created by rising ATM crime became quite evident from the response to a mailing that ASA (the ATM Security Association) sent out last week.

It was a relatively routine announcement of an updated version of the ATM Software Security Best Practices Guide. But notable, in that the most recent version was published in 2014. Needless to say, much has changed. With the recent uptick in “jackpotting”, this was bound to receive a lot of attention. How much attention, was a bit of a surprise.

About half of the recipients were non-members. We offered all a preview of the Best Practices guide, consisting of the Table of Contents and Foreword. The open rate was an impressive 43%. About 60% of those who opened the email clicked on the preview, and 55% indicated interest in subscribing to the ASA. Such a response most certainly illustrates how strong the interest in reducing ATM crime has grown within the industry.

ASA is an excellent vehicle for joining that fight – wherever and whoever you are in the ATM industry. Our global ATM crime database (the CCMIS) contains nearly 22,000 incidents of ATM crime. Identify attack trends by state, by time frame, by type of attack (physical, fraud, cyber), by attack method (skimming, TRF, jackpotting), or combinations of any of these criteria. Texas and California, for example, have completely different crime patterns – one is nearly all theft of the ATM, and half of the other is skimming. A handful of states have relatively high incidence of jackpotting.

Access to up-to-date best practices will help your organization be prepared to protect your ATM resources from the type of attack methods being used today. Physical, Software, and Cyber Security best practices have all been updated within the past 12 months. And the Theoretical Risk Register will help you prepare for attacks using technology that might be used against ATMs.

If you haven’t yet considered subscribing to ASA, take a look now at the contents of the new Software Security Best Practices Guide, Version 4, and the promotional rates currently in effect.

Best regards to all,
David