What Fintech Security Risks Are Emerging in Financial Services?
It’s no surprise that financial institutions remain high-value targets for cyber threats with the US Federal Reserve reporting that cyber risks have become an “increasingly critical concern for the US financial system.”
The growth of digital banking and fintech ecosystems gives way to increased reliance on cloud infrastructure and APIs. The innovations in banking have expanded identity-based attacks. We examine seven financial cyberattacks that every fintech security team should prepare for.
7 Financial Cyberattacks Banks Need to Defend Against Now
1. AI-Driven Financial Fraud and Phishing
AI‑driven financial fraud is accelerating rapidly as threat actors weaponize advanced automation to deceive customers and overwhelm security teams. AI‑generated phishing campaigns now produce highly personalized, error‑free messages at scale, making malicious emails nearly indistinguishable from legitimate communication. Attackers are also deploying voice‑cloning scams, using AI to mimic executives, customers, or call‑center agents to authorize fraudulent transactions. Even more alarming, deep-fake impersonation enables criminals to replicate a person’s likeness in video or live calls, further eroding trust in verification processes. Combined with automated social engineering, these tactics allow threat actors to manipulate victims with unprecedented speed and precision. Together, they signal a new era of financial fraud; one where identity, not infrastructure, is increasingly the primary attack surface.
2. Identity Compromise and Account Takeover
Identity compromise and account takeover attacks continue to escalate as threat actors target the people behind financial accounts rather than the systems themselves. These threats often begin with credential theft, where attackers steal usernames, passwords, or MFA codes to infiltrate customer or employee accounts. Increasingly common SIM‑swapping attacks allow criminals to hijack a victim’s mobile number, intercepting authentication messages and resetting account access. Threat actors are also exploiting session token theft, enabling them to bypass login requirements altogether by hijacking active sessions. Once inside, attackers can initiate fraudulent financial transactions, move funds, or manipulate account details with alarming speed. Together, these identity‑based threats highlight the growing need for stronger authentication, continuous monitoring, and rapid detection of anomalous account activity.
3. Banking Trojans Targeting Financial Customers
Banking trojans continue to pose a major threat to financial customers as threat actors deploy increasingly sophisticated tactics to steal sensitive information and compromise user accounts. These attacks often begin with credential harvesting malware, designed to capture login details and other personal data entered on infected devices. In more advanced cases, attackers use session hijacking techniques to intercept active banking sessions and gain unauthorized access without needing credentials at all. The rise of mobile banking trojans has further expanded the threat landscape, targeting smartphones with malicious apps that mimic legitimate financial tools. Altogether, these tactics heighten customer device compromise risks, making it critical for financial institutions to enhance detection, secure user endpoints, and educate customers about emerging threats.
4. Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS) Ecosystems
Malware‑as‑a‑service (MaaS) has rapidly expanded into a powerful cybercrime model, giving even low‑skill attackers on‑demand access to professional‑grade tools. Modern MaaS platforms enable subscription‑based malware distribution, allowing threat actors to deploy tailored malicious payloads at scale with minimal effort. These ecosystems also offer financial phishing kits that mimic legitimate banking interfaces, making credential theft faster and more convincing for attackers. At the higher end of the criminal market, ransomware affiliate programs operate like commercial partnerships — providing malware, infrastructure, and profit‑sharing models that incentivize more frequent and targeted attacks on financial institutions. Altogether, these services dramatically lower the barrier to entry for cybercrime, enabling a wider pool of adversaries to launch sophisticated financial attacks that once required advanced technical expertise.
5. Ransomware Targeting Financial Infrastructure
Ransomware attacks targeting financial infrastructure are becoming increasingly aggressive as threat actors focus on the systems that keep global commerce running. Criminal groups are intensifying attacks on payment platforms, aiming to freeze or reroute transactions in ways that cause immediate financial and reputational damage. Newer strains of data‑exfiltration‑focused ransomware add further pressure by threatening to leak sensitive financial records even after systems are restored. These attacks also create severe operational disruption risks, halting critical banking functions, delaying payments, and undermining customer trust. With their vast stores of sensitive data and central role in the global economy, financial institutions remain high‑value targets, prompting ransomware operators to pursue them with increasing sophistication and persistence.
6. Third-Party and Cloud Provider Risk
Third‑party and cloud‑provider risks are escalating as financial institutions depend on a growing network of external vendors and cloud platforms. Vendor compromise scenarios can expose banks to attacks that originate outside their own environment, allowing threat actors to infiltrate systems through trusted partners. Increasingly sophisticated supply‑chain attacks further amplify this exposure, enabling adversaries to breach multiple organizations by targeting a single upstream provider. Heavy cloud dependency also introduces new vulnerabilities, as outages, misconfigurations, or provider‑level compromises can disrupt critical financial operations or expose sensitive data. Altogether, these factors create significant systemic financial‑ecosystem risk, highlighting how interconnected digital infrastructure can turn a single weak link into a widespread security event.
7. API and Open-Banking Vulnerabilities
The rapid expansion of open‑banking has significantly widened the API attack surface, giving threat actors more entry points into financial systems as institutions integrate with third‑party fintech providers. These fintech integrations create new pathways for data exposure, especially when sensitive financial information flows between multiple platforms with varying security standards. Weak or inconsistent authentication mechanisms further elevate the risk, enabling attackers to exploit gaps in token management, session handling, or identity validation. Compounding the challenge, API misconfiguration risks — including overly permissive access controls, unmonitored endpoints, and improper error handling — remain some of the most common yet preventable causes of financial data breaches. Together, these vulnerabilities highlight the urgent need for continuous API monitoring, stronger authentication, and tighter governance across the open‑banking ecosystem.
How Can Security Teams Strengthen Cybersecurity for Finance?
Financial institution security teams can strengthen cybersecurity by adopting an identity‑centric approach, ensuring that access controls, authentication methods, and user‑behavior monitoring form the foundation of their defense strategy. Prioritizing strong identity protection — through MFA hardening, continuous authentication, and real‑time anomaly detection — helps reduce the risk of credential misuse and account‑based attacks. At the same time, financial institutions must expand their visibility across interconnected systems by implementing API monitoring and protection, allowing teams to detect suspicious calls, prevent data leakage, and block malicious traffic across open‑banking ecosystems. Robust endpoint and malware detection is equally critical: modern solutions should identify malicious behavior, quarantine compromised devices, and block evolving malware strains before they reach sensitive financial systems.
Beyond internal systems, financial organizations must strengthen their resilience across the broader digital ecosystem. This includes proactive vendor‑risk monitoring to evaluate third‑party security practices, surface exposure points, and identify compromise indicators early. Effective cloud‑security posture management ensures that misconfigurations, excessive permissions, and data‑storage risks are continuously identified and remediated across multi‑cloud environments. Finally, maintaining strong incident‑response readiness ensures that financial institutions can quickly mitigate damage when a breach or attack occurs. Together, these practices create a layered, proactive defense strategy capable of withstanding the growing intensity and sophistication of financial cyber threats.
Evolving Threats and Progress
As digital banking continues to evolve and gain in popularity, so do the financial cyber threats. It’s important for organizations to identify and monitor risks to stay resilient in an ever-changing environment.
Fortra’s cybersecurity portfolio integrates seamlessly across on-prem, SaaS, managed services, and hybrid environments to give organizations proactive, unified control of their security programs. Solutions span advanced cloud email protection, SaaS based vulnerability management, extended detection and response for full environment visibility, unifying discovery, classification, and protection through data security, brand protection tools that defend against external threats and fraud, and rapid suspicious email analysis to triage user reported threats. Fortra enables security teams to quickly and consistently safeguard data wherever it lives or moves and protect against threats. On‑prem, SaaS, managed services, and hybrid environments to give organizations proactive, unified control of their security programs. Solutions span advanced cloud email protection, SaaS‑based vulnerability management, unifying discovery, classification, and protection through data security, brand‑protection tools that defend against external threats and fraud, and rapid suspicious‑email analysis to triage user‑reported threats. Fortra enables security teams to quickly and consistently safeguard data wherever it lives or moves and protect against threats.
