Key Findings

  • A report released Wednesday by cybersecurity firm Trustmi found that over the past year, one in four businesses lost more than $1 million due to a single fraud incident, as the speed and sophistication of such attacks continue to rise.
  • The research shows that more than 80% of businesses experienced at least one fraud attack during this period, with nearly half suffering direct financial losses. The report states that generative AI has further lowered the barrier for attackers to carry out large-scale, sophisticated attacks, enabling them to convincingly impersonate trusted vendors, employees, and executives, and to move across systems to evade detection.
  • "Generative AI has weaponized fraud into coordinated business attacks," said Trustmi CEO Shai Gabay in a press release. "Attacks now span multiple systems, exploiting every gap between teams and tools."

In-Depth Analysis

The research highlights that the escalating risk underscores the need for greater coordination between cybersecurity and finance teams.

Trustmi reports that one-third of respondents cited the disconnect between finance and security teams as a contributing factor to recent fraud incidents or "near misses." Only 27% of respondents said fraud prevention responsibility is shared equally between finance and security teams; most indicated it falls to a single team, with finance and security leaders nearly evenly split on this issue.

"Ownership of fraud prevention remains fragmented, leaving businesses exposed to attacks that no single team can monitor end-to-end," the press release said.

The research also found that 70% of fraud incidents span multiple platforms and teams, with the likelihood of errors multiplying as fraudsters move between systems.

The report shows that the controls with the highest failure rates include: email and messaging security (44.6%), employee security awareness training (32.2%), compromised third-party vendors (31.6%), and bank account verification (26.5%).

Trustmi surveyed 525 mid-to-senior level finance and cybersecurity leaders from businesses across various industries. All respondents' companies had annual revenues of at least $1 billion.