March 19, 2017, 23:48 / Finance

Romanians skimmed the cream off their cards

Card data of Russians who withdrew money from ATMs in South-Eastern Europe could have been compromised, Interpol reported Anna Eremina Pavel Kantyshev

When skimming, scammers steal magnetic stripe data / A. Astakhova / Vedomosti

“Our monitoring service very carefully monitors any cases of compromise and has not recorded any surge in them at ATMs in Europe,” assured Alexey Golenishchev, director of electronic business monitoring at Alfa Bank . As a rule, data that is obtained by skimming at ATMs is not stored for a long time, so that it is not intercepted, for example, by Interpol and does not have time to notify the banks, he knows, the data is quickly used while the cards are alive and there is money on them. There are cases of card skimming at ATMs in Europe - and to a greater extent in Eastern Europe: in Romania, Bulgaria, etc., but on a normal scale, he points out. Fake cards, the data of which is obtained by skimming, can only be used in America, Latin America and Southeast Asia, and modern monitoring systems catch such fraud very effectively, explains Golenishchev.

“We have now received information from Interpol that there is a fairly large number of compromised cards of Russian users in Russian banks,” Artem Sychev, deputy head of the Central Bank’s main department of security and information protection, said on Friday. This is the result of the information exchange between FinCert (a division of the Central Bank) and law enforcement agencies, the information was precisely communicated to the banks whose card blocks were exposed in the attackers’ database, Sychev said, then they must take measures themselves, for example, reissue the cards.

Most likely, the compromise of cards is a consequence of skimming (to skim the cream) at ATMs in South-Eastern Europe, in particular in Bulgaria and Romania. The information came from Romanian colleagues, there are 500 MB of information, Sychev points out. We are talking about a large number of cards from several Russian banks.

Representatives of Sberbank, VTB Group and Otkritie reported that they had not recorded any cases of compromise of their clients’ cards.

It's not the Russian way to steal

In Russia, scammers are losing interest in stealing money from citizens through ATMs. In 2016, the share of such thefts from individuals decreased to 16.5% from 30% a year earlier, the Central Bank reported. In total, the attackers stole 1.08 billion rubles from the cards of Russians, in 2015 - 1.15 billion. Of these funds, thefts through ATMs accounted for only 175 million rubles. last year and 311.3 million rubles. in 2015

When skimming, fraudsters steal magnetic stripe data, but in Russia, from July 1, 2015, according to the instructions of the Central Bank, all newly issued cards must have a chip in addition to the magnetic stripe (see inset). If the card has a chip, then when conducting a transaction, the data from the chip is read, not the magnetic stripe. That is why fraudsters use stolen data only in those regions of the world where not all devices accept cards with a chip and the transaction is carried out using a magnetic stripe.

On the forums there are entire stores selling plastic card data, says Olga Kochetova, senior security analysis specialist at Kaspersky Lab. On average, 200–300 cards from each bank are sold there per month, but on holidays and during public events (Olympics, etc.) etc.), when consumer activity increases, sales increase tenfold. When withdrawing cash, you should pay attention to the appearance of the ATM, Kochetova points out; there should be no strongly protruding or poorly secured parts. It is better to choose ATMs in branches of large banks than an incomprehensible device in a dark alley, she warns.