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Signicat's Fraud Hub

To secure digital trust, we must understand fraud inside out. By analysing millions of transactions in real time, we build active prevention directly into our products. This blocks threats in the background so your customer journeys stay simple and smooth.

Signicat's Fraud Hub is your resource centre for fraud intelligence, identity fraud trends, AI-driven fraud insights, research and weekly fraud data. 

Here's your front-row seat to the fraud battle.

Numbers from last week – 20 to 26 July 2026

Every second, a new fight. Every second, a new catch.

42,283

Deepfakes stopped last week

6,313

Forged documents detected last week

Why are fraudsters shifting their attacks?

When advanced AI models blocked sophisticated deepfakes, criminals quickly changed their tactics. They are shifting to low-cost attacks they can execute in bulk. It's all in the numbers:

  • Deepfakes dropped to 2.64% in 2025.
  • Presentation attacks peaked at 13.03% in 2025.

But the threat of AI fraud is far from over. As generative tools become cheaper, deepfakes can return at any moment. To protect your business, you need an active defence that secures the entire customer journey, from registration to the final transaction.

What are the most common identity fraud tactics?

To defend your business effectively, you must understand exactly how fraudsters attack. Each typology exploits a different gap and peaks at a specific stage of the customer journey:

  • Fraudsters use high-resolution printers and AI tools to create fake physical IDs or digitally manipulate genuine passports and licences. This is the most frequent and costly attack vector in Sweden (46%) and Denmark (48%), and represents the primary onboarding threat in gaming (50%), banking (45%), and mobility (39%).

  • Criminals steal genuine login credentials through database breaches or social engineering to hijack active customer accounts, allowing them to siphon balances and make unauthorised payments. This is the dominant threat in Spain (50%) and Finland (39%), and the costliest for Norwegian organisations (40%).

  • Fraudsters manipulate human psychology through deceptive phishing or smishing messages to trick individuals into sharing secure eID access codes or authorising transfers. This is the most common threat in Germany (41%) and Spain (43%).

  • Criminals combine real stolen data points with fake information to build completely new, realistic identities that bypass standard database checks. This represents a major threat in France (35%) and the UK (33%).

  • Attacks target national electronic identity systems through credential stuffing, impersonation, or session hijacking to gain trusted access. This peaks in highly digital markets, targeting BankID in Norway (40%), followed by Finland (38%), Sweden (37%), Denmark (34%), and the Netherlands (32%).

  • Fraudsters bypass traditional controls to use mobile payment methods or siphon user balances directly from digital wallets. This represents a major emerging threat, particularly in gaming and payments.

How ready are you to stop fraud?

Take our 2-minute fraud readiness challenge to see how prepared your business is to stop identity theft.

Two different European threat patterns

Identity fraud trends are highly localised. A security model built for one country can leave you completely exposed in another. Our intelligence highlights two distinct regional battlefields.

Northern Europe: the Nordic trust paradox

  • The vulnerability: High reliance on centralised digital identity networks.
  • The threat vector: eID systems are a main target, attracting sophisticated attacks.
  • The method: Fraudsters direct their attempts at eID platforms using credential stuffing, account takeover, and synthetic identity fraud.

Southern Europe: traditional forgery and hybrid threats

  • The vulnerability: Continued reliance on physical identity documents.
  • The threat vector: A hybrid of traditional forgery and digital manipulation.
  • The method: Fraudsters use AI to modify text or photos on physical ID cards, presenting high-quality forgeries during automated onboarding.
Feature / DimensionNorthern EuropeSouthern Europe
Core vulnerabilityHigh reliance on centralised digital identity networksContinued reliance on physical identity documents
Primary threat vectorWidespread adoption makes secure eID systems a primary target for fraudA hybrid of traditional forgery and digital manipulation
Fraudulent methodAttackers target eID platforms directly using account takeover, synthetic identity profiles, and credential stuffingFraudsters use AI to modify text or photos on physical ID cards, presenting high-quality physical forgeries during automated onboarding
Common entry pointEntry, login, and transaction stages involving electronic credentialsInitial onboarding is document-heavy, but transactions remain a major pressure point
Average revenue impactVery high (Denmark: 31% of revenue; Norway: 28%; Sweden/Finland: 24%)Highly concentrated (Spain: 17% overall with banking at 25%; France: 14% of revenue)
Promo graphic of Signicat's Battle in the Dark research report, showcasing a stylized glowing neon iceberg on a deep blue background.

Get Europe's fraud picture

Explore metrics from 900 European fraud decision-makers in our latest fraud report.

  • 59% report a rise in successful fraud
  • 1 in 5 transactions and onboardings are fraudulent
  • 22% of revenue is affected
  • 80% say fraudsters adapt when blocked

How does Signicat secure the entire customer journey?

Fraud never stops at registration. We build active prevention into every step of your customer journey to keep your business safe.
  • Onboard genuine users

    Verify that new users are real and catch fake documents and deepfakes instantly with biometrics and machine learning. 

    Explore identity proofing products

  • Protect active sessions

    Stop account takeovers using national eIDs, biometrics, and multi-factor authentication.

    Explore authentication products

  • Simplify risk and compliance

    Automate AML checks and risk profiling through a single platform connected to over 200 data sources.

    Explore the orchestration suite

  • Secure agreements

    Prevent dispute fraud with legally binding signatures and tamper-proof audit trails.

    Explore eSigning suite

Shut down ID fraud with mathematical certainty

  • Zero margin for error. Cryptographically verify embedded chips for a 0% false acceptance rate.
  • Onboard, don't obstruct. Eliminate KYC drop-offs with a 2-second scan that maintains a 96% conversion rate.
  • Global AML scale. Instantly deploy automated, ICAO-compliant verification across 181 countries.

Trusted by 21,000+ companies across 40+ countries

Looking for a broader look at fraud prevention?

What's the difference between fraud prevention and fraud detection? Do different markets experience fraud diferently? How to lead in fraud prevention? We have a page dedicated for that.

Direct answers to key security questions

  • Our verification systems look past the surface image. We scan for microscopic print-pattern errors, pixel-level anomalies, and biometric liveness indicators using our identity verification solutions to verify the physical document in real time.

  • Robust national eIDs are incredibly difficult to hack, so fraudsters target human users instead. They use phishing and smishing to trick users into sharing secure access codes or login credentials. You can prevent these access gaps by using our secure authentication solutions.

  • We run passive checks, like device fingerprinting and IP analysis, quietly in the background. We only trigger additional biometric or document checks if you orchestrate authentication and identity checks to match specific, anomalous risk profiles.

  • We protect every interaction by continuously monitoring risk signals at login, active session changes, and transaction points. This blocks account takeovers and unauthorised withdrawals after registration.

  • Deepfakes use AI to generate highly convincing synthetic video or audio of a person. Presentation attacks involve physical document manipulation, such as modifying text or photos on stolen ID cards, which remains a cheaper, high-volume threat. You can see how our VideoID technology catches mock-ups and deepfakes in our demo walkthrough.

  • Europe has no single, unified digital identity framework, leaving regional security gaps that fraudsters exploit. Signicat unifies the continent's largest eID network with real-time biometric intelligence to secure transactions across all borders, in combination with connections to wallets and more than 35 eIDs.