Cyberattack rates across financial services increased 20% in the second half of 2021 from the same period a year earlier and increased 41% from the first half of 2021, according to a recent report from LexisNexis Risk Solutions. High velocity automated cyberattacks on financial service companies increased 10% to 890 million from the year prior. Cyberattacks targeting new account creation increased 73% year-over-year as fraudsters targeted fast and easy onboarding for digital banking, the report found. Meanwhile, account login attacks increased 48% and were up more than 200% on mobile apps. Financial services payment attacks were up 25% year-over-year, with mobile app attacks up more than 400%.
Attacks on the financial sector are also becoming more complex, the report found, with fraudsters often initiating attacks by obtaining new cellphone contracts or taking over the accounts of existing wireless customers to use later in bank account takeover attempts or new account fraud. New account application fraud made up 44% of the attacks against financial service companies and 56% of attacks were account takeover fraud.
