Press Release: TMD & Gunnebo whitepaper – protecting society from ATM Explosions

8 October 2019 – AMSTERDAM–(BUSINESS WIRE)–TMD Security announced today the release of a new whitepaper, ‘Protecting society from ATM explosive attacks’, created with Gunnebo, world-leading manufacturer of ATM safes. The paper highlights that the unprotected cash inside the ATM is the root cause of the escalating global problem of ATM violence and the advocated solution is passive note-staining technology to ‘spoil the prize’ and deter the criminal combined with high-security safes to protect against traditional attacks.

More than 1,000 ATM explosive attacks were reported in Europe in 2018, according to EAST (European Association for Secure Transactions). In other regions such as South Africa and Latin America, ATM explosions are daily news.

In response to these attacks, the ATM industry has continued to increase the level of physical protection, but this has simply generated a vicious circle of criminals applying more and more explosives. Meanwhile, the risks to public safety continue to grow.

‘It is technically feasible to continue to improve safe designs to resist very high explosive charges,’ said Pieter D. de Vlaam, independent security consultant, Gunnebo. ‘However, in the interests of public safety, the safe industry is avoiding doing this because such designs would provoke criminals to use even higher explosive charges. We recommend a combination of high-security EN1143-1 CEN III GAS/EX or CEN IV GAS/EX safe with passive ink-staining as an effective strategy to protect society from violent ATM attacks.’

‘ATM explosions are a significant risk to human life,’ added Bastiaan Beens, Global Product Management Director, TMD Security. ‘A strong safe that can resist traditional physical attacks where criminals use grinders and thermal tools for example, combined with passive ink-staining such as Note Staining Kit 7000 to degrade the cash is the way forward. NSK 7000 is unique because it has no electronics or sensors. The shockwave of the gas or solid explosion instantly ruptures the specially designed ink containers and the cash inside the cassettes is thoroughly covered with ink.’

The whitepaper findings and recommendations will be presented at RBR’s ATM & Cyber Security 2019 and ATMIA’s Europe ATM & Payments Innovation Summit.

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