Message from the Executive Director
Another year is drawing to a close. On behalf of the EAST Board I would like to thank everyone who has contributed towards the success of EAST this year – as a non-profit organisation on a tight budget we very much depend on the contributions made by our members towards our outputs.
This month we published upgraded Terminal Fraud Definitions to illustrate what the criminal target outcome is for each fraud type. This is a major step forward in standardising the classification of terminal fraud, which will hopefully help to continue to drive down related fraud losses – this will benefit the industry and law enforcement agencies globally when working to prevent payment terminal related crime, or in the follow up to specific cases. This work would not have been possible without the creative input of Ben Birtwistle (NatWest Bank Plc) and Claire Shufflebotham (TMD Security).
We held National Member meetings in Frankfurt in February (our 44th Meeting hosted by EURO Kartensysteme GmbH), in The Hague in June (our 45th Meeting hosted by EC3 at Europol) and in London in October (our 46th Meeting hosted by the LINK Scheme). The 46th Meeting was immediately followed by a Terminal Fraud Seminar and an ATM Physical Attacks Seminar. These successful events were organised by our Financial Crime & Security (FCS) Events team and were co-located with RBR’s ATM & Cyber Security Conference 2018 (#ACS18). These events are planned to be held again in October 2019 and for more information please check our new Events Website which went ‘live’ during the year.
The EAST Expert Group on All Terminal Fraud (EGAF), chaired by Otto de Jong, held two meetings in January and September, both hosted by ING in Amsterdam. EGAF produced the upgraded Terminal Fraud Definitions and also worked with Europol on an update to the published ‘Guidance and Recommendations to help counter Logical Attacks at ATM’s’. The updated version will soon be published by Europol. Law Enforcement participation is from Europol, INTERPOL, the US Secret Service, the BKA and the French Gendarmerie (IRCGN).
The EAST Expert Group on ATM and ATS Physical Attacks (EGAP), chaired by Graham Mott, held two meetings in March and September, both in The Hague, one hosted by Europol and the other by the LINK Scheme. Law Enforcement participation in this group continues to increase with LEAs fro10 ifferent countries participating, in addition to Europol.
The EAST Payments Task Force (EPTF), chaired by Rui Carvalho, held two meetings in April and November, both hosted by the BPFI in Dublin. This group has recently produced Payment Fraud Terminology and definitions, used when producing Payment Alerts and other documents. The aim is for this terminology to be adopted globally when describing or reporting payment and transaction fraud. Law Enforcement participation is from Europol, INTERPOL and the US Secret Service.
In addition to the work of the above groups, we supported Law Enforcement during the year by presenting at: a seminar on Fraud in Electronic Payments organised by the Portuguese Judicial Police; Europol’s 5th Strategic Meeting on Payment Card Fraud held in Hanoi, Vietnam; the Europol Training on Payment Card Forensics; by attending Europol’s Cryptocurrency Conference; and most recently by joining Europol’s Advisory Group on Financial Services.
We also presented at the following public and private sector events: the Fourth Annual Latin American Forum on Security in Payment Systems, and the CyberSouth Regional Workshop on Business Email Compromise (CEO Fraud) and Electronic Payment Fraud.
EAST continues to keep abreast of the latest fraud trends and crime information, publishing our European Payment Terminal Crime Reports and European Fraud Updates. Our thanks again go out to all the people and organisations that have shared information for the above, and for EAST Fraud Alerts (34 sent out this year to date), EAST Physical Attack Alerts (10 sent out this year to date) and most recently EAST Payment Alerts (6 sent out this year to date). This year the total number of Fraud Alerts published passed 200!
EAST Associate Membership continues to grow. We now have 202 Associate Member organisations from 52 countries and territories. This membership category is open for worldwide application to all Banks, Law Enforcement (free membership available), and other approved ATM Stakeholder organisations.
Wherever you are reading this I would like to wish you a wonderful festive break and a very happy New Year!
Kind regards
Lachlan
