Account takeover (ATO) attacks, which have become perhaps the dominant fraud type affecting a wide swath of online sellers, banks, fintechs and others, and on the rise for years, have surged significantly again in the first half of 2022, according to a new report.
An analysis of its network by antifraud technology provider Sift shows ATO fraud attacks rose 131 percent in H1 2022 compared to the same six-month period in 2021. San Francisco-based Sift’s Q3 2022 Digital Trust & Safety Index looked at more than 34,000 websites and mobile apps and found no industry managed to evade an increase in ATO.
Fintechs, including cryptocurrency exchanges, endured the highest YoY rise in ATO attack rates (71 percent), while attacks against online marketplaces rose 39 percent and digital merchants selling goods and services saw their ATO rate climb 37 percent.
“Account takeover attacks are proving to be a primary attack method among fraudsters in our challenging economic environment,” said Brittany Allen, trust and safety architect at Sift. “Adding insult to injury, cybercriminals are leveraging automation via bots and scripts to launch ATO attacks at scale, often forcing businesses to choose between introducing excessive friction in their user experience or being consumed by fraud.”
