Dive Brief:
- One in four businesses lost over $1 million from a single fraud incident in the past year as such campaigns grow in speed and complexity, cybersecurity firm Trustmi said in a report released Wednesday.
- More than 80% of enterprises were targeted by fraud at least once during the period, with nearly half suffering a direct financial loss, according to the research. Generative artificial intelligence has only lowered the barrier for attackers to run sophisticated campaigns at scale, allowing them to convincingly mimic trusted vendors, employees and executives while jumping between systems to avoid detection, the report said.
- “GenAI has weaponized fraud into a coordinated business attack,” Trustmi CEO Shai Gabay said in a press release. “Attacks now cross multiple systems, exploiting every gap between teams and tools.”
Dive Insight:
The escalating risks underscore the need for increased coordination between cybersecurity and finance teams, according to the study.
One-third of respondents cited finance–security misalignment as a factor in a recent fraud incident or a “near miss,” Trustmi reported. Only 27% of respondents said fraud prevention ownership is shared between finance and security teams. The majority pointed to a single team, with finance and security leaders nearly evenly split on which one should own it.
“Ownership of fraud prevention remains fragmented, leaving enterprises exposed to attacks that no single group can see from start to finish,” according to the release.
The research also found that 70% of incidents spanned multiple platforms and teams, compounding the chance of breakdown as fraudsters moved across systems.
The controls with the highest failure rates included e-mail and messaging security (44.6%), employee security awareness training (32.2%), compromised third-party vendors (31.6%), and bank account validation (26.5%), the report said.
Trustmi polled 525 mid-to-senior finance and cybersecurity leaders at enterprises across various sectors. All respondents represented organizations with annual revenues of $1 billion or more.
