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2007
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Lachlan's blog archive

2011 (5) 2010 (4) 2009 (3)
Lachlan Gunn

Lachlan Gunn

Director at BenAlpin Ltd
Message Message me Posts: 12 Comments: 23
Bio Lachlan is Director of BenAlpin Ltd, a security consultancy, and is also founder and a Director of European ATM Security Team Ltd, an independent, non-profit, international ATM user group. EAST has active membership from Banks and ATM Networks in 28 countries, is supported by Europol and Eurojust, Career History Lachlan began his career in the Armed Forces and has managed several Security companies in Asia-Pacific. He has spoken at 16 international security conferences in Europe since 2001 including events organised by NCR, Wincor Nixdorf, ATMIA, IIR and the BKA. Lachlan is also a Writer and has publ

Blogs

Information Security

Heat from your fingers could disclose your PIN at an ATM

30 Aug 2011

Thermal cameras can apparently detect heat signatures from your fingers on the keys after you have left an ATM. The degree of heat residue can also indicate in which order you touched them! This technology will not work effectively on metal key pads, only on plastic ones, and the successs window is limited. The message "cover your PIN when ma...

1

Information Security

Do you get SMS alerts for debit card transactions?

18 Aug 2011

Does your bank provide SMS alerts for debit card transactions? If it does, do you use the service? According to an article in the Times of India, with effect from July 2011, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has made it mandatory for ALL Indian banks to provide this service to debit card holders, and all debit card holders are required to register t...

3

 

Europol busts international cross border skimming operation

18 Jul 2011

Operation Night Clone is a great success for Europol - not only has a major international skimming group been taken out of play, but Europol has again shown its operational teeth as a pan-European Law Enforcement Agency. While the Operation was led by Italy, authorities from Bulgaria, Poland, Spain and the USA were also involved. Europol took t...

 

Fraud migrates away as European EMV rollout nears completion

22 Jun 2011

The European ATM Security Team (EAST) has just published a chart showing the impact on ATM related skimming losses of the rollout of EMV (chip and PIN) at European ATMs. There appears to have been a great deal of discussion about the merits of EMV in the United States recently, as the impact of card skimming is increasingly felt. Here in Europe n...

1

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Lachlan is Commenting on

Visa cites m-payments as it pushes US to EMV

  Better late than never!  A positive step taken to haul the U.S. in the right direction.  To quote from the Visa press release:  ".......The U.S. is the only country in the world that has not committed to either a domestic or cross-border liability shift associated with chip payments."  Here's hoping that such a liability shift will also be extended to ATMs.........

10 Aug 2011 Reply Read article

South Africa's FNB introduces ATM cash withdrawals by cellphone

  .....and what about phone security?  I'm guessing that the majority of people with smart phones do not assiduously install an anti-virus application, and then keep it updated. It's all very well to forward the SMS to a friend, but what if it is forwarded to a different cell phone by a trojan?  Easy money!  While I accept that mobile phones have a wider role in less developed economies, it seems as if the risks related to such cash withdrawals may have been discounted in favour of customer convenience. Now time will tell.............

26 Mar 2011 Reply Read article

Square accused by rival of massive security failing

  ".....the hardware is poorly constructed and cannot encrypt card data, opening up an opportunity for crooks posing as merchants." The skimming fraternity have shown great agility in the past, both at ATMs, POS terminals and unattended payment terminals.  This just sounds too easy. I agree with the Finextra verdict............the same idea using encrypted card data, and a Chip card reader, would be a lot better - except in the USA of course, until they adopt EMV! 

10 Mar 2011 Reply Read article

UK financial services industry loses £3.6bn a year to fraud - NFA

  I am not at all surprised by the way that the NFA has presented these figures.  My headline would have been something more like:  'UK Public sector loses £21 billion in fraud, 55% of the overall annual total'.  The NFA (a public sector organisation?) glosses over this by saying that 'in part this is due to more diligent reporting'.  I'm still spinning from that one (apologies for the pun). The published UK budget deficit (ONS) for December 2010 is £16.8 billion, with total net debt of £2322.7 billion.  In this age of austerity, significantly reducing public sector fraud losses would make a huge impact on the budget deficit, thereby reducing the needs for cuts elsewhere.  The financial services industry is possibly the most diligent in trying to drive down fraud losses by investing in fraud prevention measures, and has seen some great success, partly due to the roll out of 'Chip and PIN' or EMV cards and terminals. Instead of making excuses, it woul be nice if the public sector would invest a little more to seriously tackle this massive annual fraud loss figure........thereby (hopefully) reducing the austerity squeeze on the long suffering tax payer.

28 Jan 2011 Reply Read article