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Fighting Blind: European Businesses Overconfident in the Battle Against Fraud Despite 59% Surge in Attacks
June 2025 by Signicat
Signicat announces a new report on identity fraud in partnership with cybersecurity training and consultancy firm, Red Goat Cyber Security. The research reveals most European businesses remain confident despite reporting a rise in identity fraud in the last year. Businesses estimate that 19% of all transactions are fraudulent.
The Battle in the Dark 2025 explores the methods fraudsters are using to conduct identity fraud, its financial impact and the confidence businesses have in combatting it. Based on responses from over nine hundred fraud decision makers from the UK, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden, the report evaluates insights from the payments/ fintech, banking, insurance, gaming and automotive/ mobility sectors.
Key findings include:
• A sense of helplessness: 59% of businesses report that identity fraud attempts have increased compared to one year ago, and report 22% of annual business revenue being impacted by identity fraud and the costs of trying to prevent it. Meanwhile 80% argue that pushing back against fraudsters only prompts them to change their tactics.
• Misplaced confidence: Businesses estimate that 19% of transactions are fraudulent, yet 74% say they are confident in their ability to protect themselves against identity fraud. This confidence is despite 59% seeing a rise in successful identity fraud attempts.
• A lack of insight: 47% of businesses do not track fraud consistently, and a staggering 55% fail to measure the impact fraud has on their business. Without this insight into the scale of fraud on their business, there is no hope of controlling the problem.
• AI leads the charge in defence: 90% of organisations agree that their use of AI is helping to stay ahead of emerging threats.
• Insights per country and industry: The report looks at prevalent fraud tactics per sector as well as geographic differences
“This research highlights a worrying trend: businesses trust their ability to fight fraud, yet don’t truly understand where or how it’s hurting them” said Pinar Alpay, Chief Product and Marketing Officer at Signicat. “The first step in fighting back is to understand the threat—how it is targeting your business and where it is seeing success. Without that knowledge, businesses are fighting blind.”
The report also looks in detail at the tactics used to commit identity fraud, and finds that, ID document forgery remains widespread across all industries. With 71% agreeing that AI is used to conduct most fraud against them, attackers are using new technologies to conduct standard, cost-effective attacks with more sophistication and at scale, rather than inventing novel techniques.
The costliest methods of attack, however, are account takeover and social engineering attacks. These forms of fraud exploit weak customer security practices, and detection is also challenging, as transactions can appear legitimate until reports by the customer.
“The pace at which identity fraud is evolving is unlike anything we’ve seen in recent years. What was once the domain of opportunistic criminals has become a sophisticated, scalable and worryingly accessible business—often powered by the same artificial intelligence tools driving innovation across legitimate sectors, said Lisa Forte, Partner at Red Goat Cyber Security. “Confidence is a dangerous attitude to have in cybersecurity and fraud; account takeover and Synthetic ID fraud aren’t abstract threats. They’re happening now, and they’re targeting the same businesses that believe they have strong controls in place.”
