WASHINGTON—Banks are taking action to better defend against a growing wave of physical attacks on ATMs.
As CUToday.info has reported, physical attacks on ATMs have been increasing, where crooks either use heavy equipment to rip the machines out of walls, blow them open by injecting propane and then lighting the gas, and jackpotting—where crooks fool an ATM into dispensing all of its cash.
The intensifying of attacks against cash machines has prompted the American Bankers Association to collect more fine-grained detail on the incidents, Bank Info Security reported.
The ABA has collected statistics on ATM attacks for at least five years through its Bank Capture platform, which also tracks robberies, burglaries and larcenies, Heather Wyson-Constantine, the ABA's vice president for payments and cybersecurity policy, told Bank Info Security. About 60% of 91,000 bank branches in the U.S. voluntarily contribute data, she said.
But the ABA has changed how ATM attacks are reported to collect more specific details, including plotting incidents on a map. It also now enables ABA subscribers to get real-time email alerts of incidents, Wyson-Constantine told the publication.
“The system potentially could give banks more timely warnings that trouble may be on the way, because criminal gangs often hit a region and move to another one close by soon afterwards,” Bank Info Security noted.
The improvements were driven by a lack of information. There's no central repository for incident reports for attacks on ATMs, with bits of data coming from the U.S. Secret Service, ATM manufacturers and vendors, Wyson-Constantine told the publication.