Fraud Attacks Becoming Sophisticated, Scalable, And Faster, Outpacing Business Defence: Report

Frauds are becoming increasingly sophisticated and scalable with the advanced tools of digital technology. According to a fraud research report titled “Building Trust In A World of Deception” released by Experian, a global data and technology company, and Forester Consulting, 69 per cent of the respondents feel that their current technology stack is insufficient to counter fast-evolving fraud threats.

The study was conducted in nine countries, including India, and interviewed around 1,000 senior leaders, including chief executive officers, chief technology officers, executive vice presidents, senior vice presidents, directors, and managers. Over 60 per cent of the respondents were from the financial service industry, 22 per cent from the e-commerce industry, and 18 per cent from the telecommunications industry.

• Under the prevailing global nature of fraud, 64 per cent of respondents said that they are planning to integrate credit risk assessment and fraud prevention into their overall risk profiling system and management strategy.

• The report highlights that over two-thirds (67 per cent) of the respondents expect more fraud in 2026. They expect a 10 per cent hike in 2026 compared to the previous year. As a result, they see an increase in their losses to fraud.

• While many businesses do not have the capacity to deploy advanced tools, they are still grappling with the built or buy idea to fight against fraud threats.

• According to the report, 71 per cent of the respondents stated that they are investing more in fraud technology than in human fraud analysts.

• Around 61 per cent of respondents feel that all kinds of deepfakes should be made illegal. Notably, 64 per cent of the respondents feel that the existing know your customer (KYC) and identity verification checks cannot identify a GenAI-generated document. GenAI is the biggest challenge in fraud prevention, 66 per cent of fraud experts feel.

• Around two-thirds (67 per cent) feel that multiple fraud prevention solutions, such as a unified cloud-based platform, credit risk assessment, lowering investigation costs, etc., on a single platform, is the need of the future.

• More than half (54 per cent) of the respondents acknowledge significant improvement in fraud detection after implementing ML technology. Over 60 per cent of the senior fraud decision makers accept that ML has increased analysts’ productivity by prioritising the cases where manual review is required.

• Half of the respondents agree that ML can detect fraud that can easily go missing in the rule-based system checks, underscoring how crucial ML can be in this regard. However, the report reveals that many decision makers still do not understand the value of ML and also lack the quality data required to train the ML models.

• Around 74 per cent of the Indian businesses want to integrate ML-based solutions for fraud prevention, and 63 per cent say that proven incidents of fraud prevention in the peer network would increase ML adoption among businesses.

Manish Jain, Country Managing Director of Experian India, said, “Globally, fraud has entered a new era, driven by economic volatility, highly organised fraud networks, and rapid advances in Generative AI. For fast‑growing markets like India, where digital adoption is accelerating across financial services, e-commerce, and payments, the implications are even more significant. As fraudsters evolve, Indian businesses must modernise with equal speed, adopting machine learning, device intelligence, and shared fraud networks to stay ahead.”

GenAI Is The Biggest Concern

GenAI or generative AI is the biggest concern in preventing fraud. Around 60 per cent of respondents believe that the fraud threats that are visible today are only the tip of the iceberg; the actual threat could be much bigger.

At the same time, 77 per cent of the respondents believe that a GenAI fraud assistant can help in reducing the time and effort required in managing new fraud. The report shows that 80 per cent of respondents believe that GenAI assistants can make the fraud prevention process more accessible because less technical employees would also be able to use them.

One-fourth (74 per cent) of the respondents agree that a shared data group could be a feasible solution, and in the next three years, most businesses will be a part of it to collaborate and fight fraud together.