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The growing prevalence of account fraud and attacks has become a significant challenge for digital business platforms and marketplaces worldwide. With fraudsters and cyber criminals employing increasingly sophisticated techniques, industries are losing billions annually, affecting both customer trust and corporate revenues.
In today’s ever-evolving cyber-fraud landscape, businesses must be aware of the key trends in user account attacks and employ the best practices and technologies that organizations can leverage to protect their users.
Cybersecurity experts agree that the threat of account fraud and attacks continues to dramatically increase annually. Cybercriminals are continuously innovating new attack methods, leveraging AI to increase attack effectiveness, targeting a wide range of industries and platforms, all with rising success rates.
According to recent FTC statistics, there were 2.6 million fraud reports filed in the last year, resulting in approximately $10 billion in financial losses.
“There's lots of innovation on the part of the fraudsters,” said John Tolbert, Director of Cybersecurity Research at KuppingerCole Analysts. “They are trying out new techniques, industries, sites, and unfortunately, they are increasingly successful. The numbers you see are just reports that people actually filed. I'm sure there are many, many reports that didn't get filed.”
One of the most destructive of these attacks is account takeover (ATO).
When attackers gain unauthorized access to a user's account, often for financial gain or exfiltration of a company’s proprietary information, this type of attack is known as ATO. It is sometimes perpetrated by using stolen credentials from previous breaches or by tricking users into revealing their login details through phishing, smishing, or other social engineering tactics.
"Account takeover isn’t just about stealing credentials,” said Mark Batchelor, CTO and Co-Founder at Verosint. “It’s about turning those credentials into profit, whether through gift cards, promotion points, or outright purchases."
Once inside, fraudsters can exploit the account for various types of monetary fraud, including gift card theft, unauthorized purchases, and reward point conversions. Cybercriminals can also leverage ATO as a springboard for business attacks including data exfiltration, business disruption, ransomware, and more.
Common techniques of ATO include phishing emails that mimic legitimate communications, malware designed to capture login details, and drive-by downloads that exploit browser vulnerabilities.
According to credit monitoring service TransUnion, ATO attacks have surged over 80 percent since 2019. As ATO becomes an increasingly widespread issue, attackers can use very efficient methods to do additional damage.
Under the increasing influence of ATO attacks, businesses that embrace modern detection and prevention solutions will find themselves better positioned to protect their customers, stakeholders, and the reputational integrity of their business.
For more information on rising attacks to watch in 2025, the six best practices for mitigating account fraud, and more, be sure to access the most recent Account Fraud & Attack Trends Report: The Three Most Critical User Account Attacks to Stop in 2025 today.
