A new report from TransUnion found digital fraud attempts recently shifting focus from financial services to the travel and leisure sectors.
The findings in TransUnion’s Global Fraud Report for the second quarter of 2021 found global digital fraud soaring 155.9% in the travel and leisure sectors from the second quarter of 2021. The most prevalent form of digital fraud identified in those sectors was credit-card fraud.
“It is quite common for fraudsters to shift their focus every few months from one industry to another,” said Shai Cohen, senior vice president of Global Fraud Solutions at TransUnion. “Fraudsters tend to seek out industries that may be seeing an immense growth in transactions. This quarter, as countries began to open up more from their COVID-19 lockdowns and travel and other leisure activities became more mainstream, fraudsters clearly made this industry a top target.”
Across the world, digital fraud attempts rose 16.5% in the second quarter from the same time a year ago. In the U.S., attempts rose 17.1% in the same time frame.
Travel and leisure digital fraud attempts rose 136.6% in the U.S.
Gaming was another sector targeted, TransUnion reported. Global digital fraud attempts rose 393% in the second quarter from the same time a year ago, the report found, with U.S. attempts up 261.9%.
Meanwhile, financial services saw attempts slow. Global digital fraud attempts rose 149% in the first four months of 2021 from the final four months of 2020. Yet attempts in the second quarter of 2021 rose just 18.8% globally from the same period a year earlier.
“One in three people globally have been targeted by or fallen victim to digital fraud during the pandemic, placing even more pressure on businesses to ensure their customers are confident in transacting with them,” said Melissa Gaddis, senior director of customer success, Global Fraud Solutions at TransUnion. “As fraudsters continue to target consumers, it is incumbent on businesses to do all that they can to ensure their customers have an appropriate level of security to trust their transaction is safe all while having a friction-right experience to avoid shopping cart abandonment.”
