ATM Frauds Getting More Sophisticated: Experts

Economic frauds carried out through bank Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) are now getting sophisticated and trendy with both technical and human expertise employed to siphon-off the crisped currency from their chests.

Anti-fraud experts say that India, with its huge number of ATMs coming up every other day, is witnessing wide scale effects of the ATM fraud phenomenon, which was till date prevalent in foreign countries.

“The problem of ATM frauds is global in nature and its ramifications have been felt in India as well. It is a big threat and it requires co-ordinated and co-operative action on the part of all the stakeholders,” said Pravin Dalal, a cyber security expert.

ATM frauds are executed by techniques like wire tapping, replicating the digital signature of the card, getting authentic personal data at fake data call centres, tampering ATM slots by rigging, phishing through e-mail accounts and fixing hidden cameras at vantage points inside ATM installations to steal the secret PIN number of customers.

Fraudsters use special devices like skimmers, duplicate ATMs etc to withdraw stacks of money from ATMs.

“Direct access to the bank account through the ATM card will not cause huge per client losses but collectively in the coming days it can be a huge figure,” said Mayur Joshi, head of India Forensic agency, a private firm. (PTI)