EAST Development Director Rui Carvalho presented at the fifth edition of the Europol Training Course on Payment Card Fraud Forensics and Investigations at the Spanish National Police Academy in Ávila, Spain. His talk gave an overview of EAST, shared the latest statistics and trends on terminal fraud in Europe from the perspective of the private sector, and covered trends in payments, including an overview of regional and global e-wallets.
The Europol training, which ran from 8 to 12 July 2019, covered a wide range of topics in the area of payment fraud, including online skimming, logical attacks on ATMs, card data analysis, cryptocurrencies, social engineering attacks and loyalty card fraud.
The training course was attended by 53 Investigators, forensic experts, and accredited trainers from 25 countries in the European Union, as well as from Colombia, Moldova and the United States. Presentations were given by Europol staff and by key private sector organisations (including EAST). Since the first training in 2015 over 250 international students have benefited from the training programme, which has been supported by EAST from the outset.
This kind of event highlights the importance of close cooperation between the public and private sectors in the fight against cybercrime and all emerging threats in the field of payment card fraud. Such cooperation is enhanced by regular training, and by shared updates on investigative techniques and the improvement of forensic capabilities.