The Impersonation Epidemic Drives Costly Fraud Attacks

Fraud has entered a new era where the primary battleground is identity. Trends illustrate a paradox facing organizations: As the overall rate of suspected digital fraud declined to 3.8% in 2025, account takeover, account creation fraud, consumer reported scams and data breach severity accelerated last year. Far from a contradiction, it reflects adversaries shifting away from easily detectable fraud toward sophisticated attacks that bypass traditional identity verification and authentication controls.

This report is intended to provide fraud, risk, identity and authentication leaders with current information to evaluate their fraud prevention tactics in the context of global fraud trends and adjust their fraud prevention strategies with confidence. It blends two sources of intelligence: insights from a global survey of consumers in 18 countries and regions and those gained from billions of transactions within the proprietary TransUnion® global intelligence network. Each lens tells a different part of the story, and together they offer a holistic view of today’s fast-changing threat landscape.