As the financial landscape evolves, fraudsters continue to adapt by leveraging technology, psychology, and timing to compromise even the most secure systems. One of the fastest growing and most damaging forms of fraud today is account takeover (ATO), where criminals use stolen credentials to impersonate legitimate account holders and gain control over financial accounts.
In the past year, the industry has seen a marked rise in coordinated ATO activity, fueled by a surge in phishing, vishing, smishing, and malware-based attacks. Increasingly, these schemes exploit human behavior as much as they exploit system vulnerabilities.
The New Era of Fraud: Beyond the Perimeter
While credit unions have invested heavily in cybersecurity infrastructure, fraudsters are targeting the edges, where digital convenience meets human interaction. Text and voice-based scams mimic legitimate fraud alerts, deceiving cardholders into revealing information or confirming false transactions. These attacks are not random; they are engineered with precision, using personal data often obtained from large-scale breaches or the dark web.
Even newer technologies like eSIM-enabled mobile devices are being exploited to intercept one-time passcodes (OTPs) and authentication messages, a sign of how quickly the threat environment evolves.
Why This Matters for Credit Unions
Credit unions pride themselves on member trust and personalized service, both of which fraudsters attempt to weaponize. By mimicking communication styles, spoofing phone numbers, or posing as credit union employees, they exploit the very channels designed to build relationships.
The impact goes beyond immediate financial losses. Every ATO incident chips away at member confidence. To preserve trust, credit unions must go beyond reactive fraud controls and adopt multi-layered, behavior-driven defense strategies.
Strategic Imperatives
To stay ahead of the next generation of account takeover schemes, credit unions should focus on three strategic priorities:
- Reinforce Member Awareness
Education remains one of the most powerful tools against social engineering. Regular, concise communication about how your credit union will, and will not, contact members can significantly reduce the success rate of phishing and vishing attacks. - Adopt Multi-Factor and Multi-Channel Authentication
Implementing strong authentication (with no fallback options) creates friction where it matters, at the point of risk. The goal is not to slow down the member experience, but to secure it intelligently through adaptive verification that adjusts based on behavior and context. - Leverage Data and Collaboration
Fraud doesn’t happen in isolation. Shared data, real-time reporting, and coordinated response across credit unions and service providers create a stronger defense ecosystem. Reviewing provisioning and exemption reports daily and tightening controls on high-risk actions ensures fraudsters can’t exploit blind spots.
From Reaction to Resilience
Fraud will continue to evolve, but so too must the industry’s defenses. The shift from traditional detection to proactive resilience requires credit unions to pair technology with vigilance, and policy with partnership.
By strengthening authentication practices, deepening collaboration, and investing in continuous member education, credit unions can turn one of their greatest vulnerabilities, trust, into their greatest advantage.
About the Author
Rebekah Higgins is Synergent’s Chief Growth Officer. For over 26 years, she has worked with credit unions of all sizes, helping them embrace and navigate changes in the fast-paced payment and fraud industries. Rebekah’s depth of product and trend knowledge has led to her becoming a sought-after subject matter expert.
