Sift has released its Q3 2024 Digital Trust Index, which found that account takeover (ATO) attacks are on the rise, having an increase of 24% across its Global Network. The release showed that ATO attack rates saw a significant 24% increase across the Sift Global Network in Q2 2024, compared to the same period in 2023.

In addition, 24% of clients and customers that were surveyed by Sift have also been victims of ATO in the past year, a number that went up from 18% in 2023. This surge represents a part of a continuing trend, as ATO attacks have been steadily climbing in recent years, with Sift data showing a 354% year-over-year increase in Q2 2023. Furthermore, data breaches, which often are the precursor of ATOs, are also making headlines in 2024, thanks to the high-profile incidents that include National Public Data’s massive data breach of 2.9 billion records, the Ticketmaster hack, and Change Healthcare’s patient data theft at the hands of a ransomware gang.

All of these situations underscore the widespread consequences of this growing threat that puts the security and privacy of individuals and companies in danger. More insights on the Sift Q3 2024 Digital Trust Index In the survey, Sift also revealed the discovery of a powerful tool on the messaging application Telegram, which started to be leveraged by individuals in order to commit account takeovers and identity thefts. The solution is easy to use as a fraud-as-a-service application that even novice cybercriminals can use to exploit compromised data.

The developers designed the application in order to aggregate breached data from multiple sources, such as Intelligence X, and market it on Telegram for prices as low as USD 10 per week. After individuals purchase access, customers of this tool will have the possibility to search for clients or corporate accounts to obtain credentials that have been part of large-scale data breaches or otherwise maliciously gained. The service also enables access to find credentials for multiple people, in a quick manner.

This process also highlights the ease and speed with which kind of fraudsters have the capability to access and exploit compromised data, while also serving as an example of the democratisation of fraud and the rise of fraud-as-a-service. With this intel, it is increasingly important that businesses and companies adopt technologies to combat fraud and that customers use improved passwords in order to protect themselves from falling victim. In order to gather findings for the Index, 1.096 adults across the US were surveyed online in July 2024 on behalf of Sift.

Alongside surveying customers, the Q3 Digital Trust Index also relied on data from the Fraud Industry Benchmarking Resource (FIBR), which was developed in order to allow access to key fraud metrics across industries, time, and geographies. Source: Link .