BRUSSELLS, Belgium–While financial institutions in the U.S. face a deadline this week from Mastercard to make their ATMs EMV-compliant, in Europe institutions are dealing with a different issue that could be headed to the U.S.: physical attacks on ATMs that involve explosives.
As CUToday.info has previously reported, experts have warned that attacks on the machines are likely to grow in the U.S. as card security improves.
According to the European ATM Security Team (EAST), in the first six months of 2016, police in Europe cataloged 492 explosive attacks, up from 273 attacks for the same period in 2015. The ATM Security Team said 110 of those attacks involved solid explosives, with explosive gas being used in the other attacks.
"This rise in explosive attacks is of great concern to the industry in Europe as such attacks create a significant amount of collateral damage to equipment and buildings as well as a risk to life," said Lachlan Gunn, EAST’s executive director, in a released statement.
Other attackers in Europe have resorted to so called “ram raids” in which a heavy object is used to knock the machines down, enabling attackers to drag them away and use drills to penetrate the safe. In the explosive attacks, a common strategy involves pumping explosive gas, such as a combination of acetylene and oxygen, into the ATM's safe using flexible tubing, then detonating the gas to gain access to the safe. A video of just such as attack can be seen here.