Fraudcast 2025: Five trends to watch
Gus Tomlinson
As one year ends and a new one begins, the annual cycle of scams that accompany Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Boxing Day and January sales returns. The rise of eCommerce has seen online fraud surge and evolve year after year.
Predictable fraud patterns may have made us more vigilant but fraud attacks evolve rapidly. These changes add new threats to old scams, but they also bring new ways to protect and defend against identity fraud.
Here are five fraud trends that businesses should watch out for in the coming year.
Faster pace of fraud attacks
Fraud is already widespread. It’s the most common crime in England and Wales, according to data produced by the UK’s Office for National Statistics. In the United States, the financial impact of fraud has increased almost fourfold in four years, spiking at 12.5 billion U.S. dollars in fraud losses in 2023.
In 2025, we predict this upward trajectory will be steeper still, with the speed and frequency of fraud attacks set to see a significant increase.
The Global Fraud Report 2024 Get the facts about fraud
Doubters need beware and brace for a turbulent 2025. Organised crime groups have already made fraud a professional, stable source of income. Now with Generative AI (GenAI) and the industrialisation of identity fraud, attacks will become more frequent, larger in scale and increasingly sophisticated.
Businesses must be prepared to respond quickly and effectively to these threats, leveraging advanced technologies and real-time data analytics to detect and mitigate fraud as it happens.
"In 2025, many businesses will wake up to the presence of sleeper fraud in their system and the need to stop synthetic identities before they are onboarded."
Sleeper fraud wakeup call
One of fastest growing forms of identity fraud serves the most cunning and patient of criminals. Synthetic identity fraud mixes stolen and fake identity data to create a new identity, making it harder to detect. This fabricated identity is then used to open accounts and commit fraudulent transactions when successful.
The most patient synthetic identity fraudsters play the long game. By building up a credit history and gradually gaining access to higher-value accounts and services, sleeper fraud waits for a fake identity to mature before cashing in on one big scam and vanishing without a trace.
For too long businesses have focussed investment on fraud prevention at the point of transaction, leaving their databases vulnerable to identity fraud attack at the point of onboarding a new customer. In 2025, many businesses will wake up to the presence of sleeper fraud in their system and the need to stop synthetic identities before they are onboarded.
Coordinated fraud defence
Fraud doesn’t respect national or business boundaries. The global nature of digital transactions allows criminals to exploit vulnerabilities wherever they find them, whether that’s a weak regulatory jurisdiction or siloed identity security.
In 2025, more and more businesses will think beyond borders, collaborating with other businesses and across sectors to identify and fight back against identity fraud.
This is already happening but the speed and scale will step up to keep pace with criminals. Hesitancy to collaborate for fear of a losing a competitive edge or violating privacy laws will fade and data and fraud protections will be rebalanced.
“In 2025, more and more businesses will think beyond borders, collaborating with other businesses and across sectors to identify and fight back against identity fraud.”
In late 2024, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) declared that data protection laws don’t prevent organisations from sharing personal information to fight fraud. It urged organisations to share data in a “responsible, fair and proportionate” way to help individuals avoid the economic and financial harm that comes with being a victim of fraud.
Make the right customer decisions in real time
AI fraud protection
GenAI has helped fraudsters develop new tactics at pace. Voice manipulation and deepfake video have quickly become prevalent fraud attack vectors. Just as AI has advanced deepfake and synthetic identities, however, it will also continue to advance identity fraud protection in 2025.
Smart identity proofing systems are increasingly building a multi-layered identity fraud defence against deepfake documents, combining biometric authentication with video injection attack detection and AI-powered data mining to quickly analyse vast data volumes and detect identity document anomalies.
“Smart identity proofing systems are increasingly building a multi-layered identity fraud defence against deepfake documents, combining biometric authentication with video injection attack detection and AI-powered data mining.”
By combining AI, human expertise and cross-sector identity trust networks, businesses will increasingly apply pattern matching and machine learning to trust-test identity attributes, history and behaviour in real time before onboarding a new customer.
Recycling old scams
As companies pivot to defend against new fraud threats in 2025, criminals will inevitably revert to old tactics enhanced by the latest technologies, exploiting our blind spots and vulnerabilities.
Throughout history, criminals have always taken advantage when our backs are turned. As the identity fraud landscape continues to evolve in 2025, organisations must remain vigilant, alert to old and new scams and implement layered fraud prevention strategies to defend against them.
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