In 2011, a criminal gang swiped millions of dollars from ATMs around the world. They did it by hacking the network of a Middle Eastern bank, and then giving illicit debit cards to accomplices who started draining cash from the machines. The heist is an example of a lucrative, decades-long trend of criminals using compromised credit and debit cards to steal from banks and merchants—but it is the sort of caper that is much harder to pull off today.
According to Craig Vosburg, chief services officer at Mastercard, the company’s Safety Net tool routinely detects and shuts down card scams before crooks can cash in. For example, in 2023, Vosburg says Safety Net detected more than 2,300 suspicious transactions per hour over the course of three days and blocked $14.7 million worth of fraud.
