Let’s be honest: fraud is the original hustle. Long before anyone was talking about malware or zero-day exploits, there were fraudsters running scams with nothing but confidence and a forged signature. But in today’s digital age, fraud has scaled. Massively. It’s no longer just a side hustle for criminals – it’s a global industry.
How global? It honestly doesn’t matter which stat I drop here – they’re all shocking. But try this on for size: digital fraud is on track to cost the global economy $350 billion by 2027. 2-5% of global GDP is estimated to come from laundered money. And 60% of financial institutions say they’ve faced an unprecedented surge in fraud attacks over the past year. In other words, fraud isn’t trending. It’s exploding.
It’s All One Problem Now
If the fraudsters and bad actors of yesterday were lone wolves, today’s fraud actors are running playbooks that rival nation-state cyber operations. And that’s exactly the point: cybercrime and fraud have officially fused. The techniques, tools, and tactics used in cyberattacks are now being repurposed to power the next generation of fraud – ones that are faster, smarter, and far more convincing.
We used to say cybersecurity was about keeping bad actors out. Fraud? That was an internal thing – suspicious transactions, fake identities, shady behavior. But now? It’s the same adversary. Just a different mask.
Fraud and cyber aren’t just intersecting, they’re overlapping so much that the distinction is starting to blur. There’s a growing need to look at these attacks not as separate threats, but as one evolving ecosystem that exploits the same gaps. That shift in mindset – viewing fraud and cyber together – is what unlocks the next level of defense.
No Team Sees the Full Picture
Here’s the kicker: no individual team in most financial institutions has a 360-degree view of fraud-related risk. Cyber teams focus on network intrusion. Fraud teams look at transaction anomalies. Identity teams manage logins and access. That’s the case in most financial institutions today – each group is doing its best, but attackers are moving across domains. That’s why a holistic approach is needed.
Fusion teams – where cyber, fraud, identity, and authentication expertise come together – can bring game-changing capabilities:
- Comprehensive threat visibility, spanning from endpoint to transaction
- Rapid detection and response, stopping bad actors before money moves.
- Reduced false positives through behavioral analytics and shared intelligence.
- Proactive protection that safeguards customer trust.
- Regulatory readiness is baked into the detection infrastructure.
And the industry is taking notice. Gartner predicts that by 2026, 20% of large enterprises will adopt a cyber-fusion model – combining fraud, cyber, and identity teams to create unified threat response units. From Team8’s conversations with private equity firms, we’re seeing a similar trend: they’re actively looking to acquire fraud companies to bolster their cyber portfolios. The momentum behind this convergence shows it’s no longer just a security strategy – it’s becoming a business imperative.
Charm Security: Built for This Intersection
At Team8, we’ve been building at this intersection from the ground up. Our newest company, Charm Security, is rethinking how financial institutions defend against scams and social engineering.
Unlike traditional fraud tools that focus primarily on identity verification and transaction monitoring, Charm brings cyber-grade capabilities – like psychology, behavioral intelligence, and the attacker’s perspective, into the fraud fight. It helps financial institutions intervene earlier, detect social engineering in real time, and reduce losses before they happen. Because in the era of deepfakes and human hacking, protecting people is as important as protecting infrastructure.
The Future of Fraud Defense Is a Unified Front
As fraud gets more personal, more scalable, and more AI-powered, the line between cyber and fraud will continue to blur. The only way to keep up is to fuse capabilities and innovate across silos. As outlined in Team8’s recently published Fraud Exposed Report, the game has changed.
Fraud may be on the rise. But so are the defenses – especially when cyber and fintech join forces.
