I just read this story from Boing Boing and it’s really scary; you’d think it would get more coverage in mainstream media.    I guess we have to depend on Blogs to spread this story.

I can just imagine traveling in a different country, trying to an ATM and being told my Bank card is no longer valid.  

BoingBoing pal and Citibank customer Jake Appelbaum tried to withdraw some cash with his ATM card on Saturday night. He initiated his bank account long ago in the US, but was in Toronto, Canada yesterday. Jake explains:

To my surprise, the ATM machine rejected the transaction and urged me to contact my financial institution. The machine also reported on the receipt "INELIGIBLE ACCOUNT."

Jake called Citibank’s international customer support number, and soon learned that the lockout was part of a much larger fraud crisis — by no means the only data security issue at Citibank in recent months.

About 5 months ago I found a fraudulent charge on my account from MonsterIT (Monster.com Italy) for just under 1000.00.  The money was returned a couple of weeks later - but the I question the security of the network.

For example, what are the metrics for this?  How often are the ATM networks being hacked into?   How can you protect yourself from this?   Do you need to have ATM cards from different banks when your traveling?   How do you protect yourself from something like this?    I don’t know - so much of life now depends on plastic cards.

In August 2004 there was a power blackout on most of the East Coast of the United States.   I recall I had about 20 dollars on me; I was working in Westchester and it took me about 8 hours to get home to Brooklyn.  No cash machine would work and most cell phones did not work either.    I was lucky to have the 20 bucks on me or I might not have made it home at all.     At the time I thought to myself  "I’m going to make sure I have at least 50 bucks on me at anytime"…. "I’m never going to be caught with just 20 dollars on me".    But the crisis passed and I often just have twenty dollars on me - maybe I’ll remember this now and carry more.

And next time I travel - I’m going to make sure there’s alternate ways to get cash…..who knows how these ATM networks are going to be compromised in the future.   If we tie this to metrics there should be an overall metric to say how safe the ATM networks are.  Just like we get statistics that crime went down in NYC this year from last year - we should know how safe we are - or not.