BioCatch Report Finds Rising U.S. Banking Fraud and Account Takeovers
Summary
BioCatch’s 2026 report, based on data from 292 U.S. financial institutions, describes rising impersonation, phishing and job scams, more account-takeover activity, and a remote-access-enabled case study. It calls for real-time interbank fraud intelligence sharing.
Key points
- BioCatch says its U.S. customers saw job-scam attempts rise 44% and phishing attempts rise 50% in the past year; impersonation-scam losses more than doubled between 2025 and 2026.
- The report records a 45% increase in active remote-access trojan (RAT) sessions and a 22% increase in reported account-takeover sessions across BioCatch’s U.S. customer base.
- BioCatch’s analysis of customer-reported fraud sessions from June 2025 to May 2026 found 83.9% originated from devices in the U.S.; it attributed this in part to scams in which victims authorize payments themselves.
- A case study describes a RAT-enabled account takeover involving credential compromise, persistent access from a Windows device, registration of a new Android device, and attempted transactions from multiple locations.
- In the case study, BioCatch identified signals including unusual device behavior, RAT activity, location anomalies, and manual password entry; the report says these provided opportunities for intervention before the account holder lost money.
- The report argues that banks should share behavioral and account signals in real time to help identify coached scam victims and suspected mule accounts across institutions.
Article Details
- Publisher
- BioCatch
- Report Period
- August 2026; analyses include June 2025–May 2026 and H1 2026.
- Scope
- Digital banking fraud trends in the United States, based primarily on BioCatch customer data.
- Sample Size
- BioCatch data from 292 U.S. financial institutions serving more than 280 million users; analyses are aggregated and anonymized.
- Key Statistics
- 78% of U.S.-based participants in BioCatch’s global industry survey reported increasing fraud attempts at their organization.
- Reported account takeover sessions across BioCatch’s U.S. customer base increased 22% in H1 2026 compared with H1 2025.
- Active remote access trojan sessions in the U.S. increased 45% in the last year among BioCatch customers.
- 83.9% of fraud attempts analyzed from June 2025 through May 2026 originated from devices located in the United States.
- BioCatch customers reported a 50% increase in phishing attempts in the past year.
- Recommendations
- Use real-time, interbank, behavior-based intelligence sharing to help identify scams while they are happening.
- Connect behavioral, device, and network signals across sending and receiving institutions.
- Integrate real-time decision-making into fraud controls.
- Use device-level fraud detection to identify remote access activity.