Account takeover (ATO) attacks are slowly becoming one of the biggest threats to businesses operating in the broad fintech sector. The risk comes not only from the growing number of attacks but primarily from their nature: ATOs are particularly deceptive and hard to detect. These attacks are fast, often automated, and — most importantly — usually show no clear warning signs until actual damage is done.
Given the accelerating digitalization of financial services and the rapid development of AI (increasingly used by cybercriminals), account takeover prevention has become a priority. This concern applies to all fintech companies, including those just entering the market and not yet widely recognized by customers.
The most common account takeover techniques
Hackers’ capabilities continue to grow, largely thanks to AI. For now, account takeovers are mainly carried out using four primary methods:
- Credential stuffing uses previously stolen credentials, often obtained from data breaches. These credentials are frequently traded on the dark web and exploited for financial fraud, account takeover, or direct attacks on a company’s IT infrastructure.
- Phishing remains one of the most common and effective cyberattacks. AI enables attackers to generate voices, images, and other highly realistic content, which significantly increases the attackers’ success rate when combined with personalized messages.
- Social engineering targets individuals by manipulating them into revealing confidential information or performing actions compromising security. The rise of AI-generated content and fake news has made social engineering attacks more convincing and widespread.
- Session hijacking happens when an attacker takes advantage of weak session security to jump into someone’s active session — often without the user noticing — and gains access to sensitive information.
It’s worth noting that this list may soon become outdated. The rapid progress of AI and bot-based attacks means hackers are gaining access to more tools and lesser-known techniques.
How evolving technology creates new threats
It’s not just banking — many other financial services are undergoing digitalization. Investment funds, trading platforms, crypto exchanges, and digital wallets are all moving online. To stay competitive, companies introduce customer-friendly features, such as mobile apps. But there’s a catch — the more fintech shifts to digital platforms, the more potential attack vectors emerge for cybercriminals.
Although the decline in account takeover fraud in financial services may suggest some improvement, the threat remains significant, and awareness is still low.
Many companies rely on third-party APIs that are often poorly secured. This vulnerability opens up multiple access points for attackers: open banking, third-party apps, and a general reduction in client-side safeguards due to the demand for speed and convenience.
How account takeover prevention tools work
To address these risks, advanced account takeover prevention solutions use several key mechanisms. They typically include:
- Ongoing deep and dark web monitoring, which scans multiple sources — including platforms like Telegram, the deep web, and dark web — to detect compromised data related to your organization’s accounts.
- Continuous monitoring of user login domains, which helps to identify and prevent the use of breached credentials.
- Real-time alerts, which immediately notify the company once suspicious behavior is flagged.
Another crucial feature is seamless integration with a company’s IT infrastructure. This capability makes the solution easy to implement and minimizes the workload for internal teams.
Why proactive protection matters
Account takeover attacks come in many forms and often go unnoticed. Every compromised account puts both the company and its users at risk. That’s why a broader, more layered approach is necessary.
Companies need to combine different types of protection to stay ahead. The core lies in professional activity monitoring — not only to stop account takeovers but also to detect and respond to attempts immediately.
Almost equally important is education — employees and users must understand how these threats originate and how to recognize early signs of a compromised profile.
