While companies are keeping a tight watch over every penny, fraud and financial crimes are causing an estimated annual revenue loss of $3.5 trillion across industries. This loss has a major impact on the economy and the bottom line since a dollar lost to fraud is equivalent to a dollar in profit. No less important, the reputational damage associated with major cyber and fraud events is immediate.

The Internet has given criminals unprecedented access to data, technology and networks of specialists in the underground supply chain. These criminals are constantly evolving their techniques to bypass the latest defenses. The question for enterprises is no longer just, “How do we prevent our customers’ credentials from being compromised?” It’s also become, “Assuming credentials are compromised, how do we stop criminals from using those credentials to steal money?”

Indeed, we are not speaking about victimless crimes here. Data theft is just a small step from fraud and identity theft. At this moment, someone could be filing a tax return or submitting a health insurance claim with your identity or that of your customers’. The same stolen data can also have national security implications: It may be used to launder money for illicit activities such as the drug trade or even terrorism.

Leading enterprises have figured out that no one technique is sufficient to adapt to the changing threats. They must be able to constantly adjust, to layer defenses and to know more than the criminals think they know. For instance, one current trend is to more actively link cyber intelligence to customer behavior and transactional intelligence across other channels in order to better identify financial crimes. It’s an arms race, and we need a deep arsenal to counter the threat effectively.

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