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Credential Stuffing

Why Banks Must Upgrade Their Defenses Against Credential Stuffing

July 1, 20245 min Read

credential stuffing

Arkose Labs is on a mission to reduce the cost and impact of automated attacks and online fraud for the world’s leading financial institutions. It’s a challenging goal as we face opponents who are technically savvy, have access to the latest tools and technology, and continuously innovate to scale their attacks. Continuous pilferage of consumers’ personally identifiable information through frequent data breaches further supplements their attacks, making it difficult for banks to balance account security with user experience.

Banking Accounts Are Prime Targets for Credential Stuffing

As digital accounts have become central to users’ online financial activities, they have also increasingly attracted attackers aiming for unauthorized access to legitimate accounts through account takeover (ATO) attacks.

Take the U.S. banking industry as an example. It's estimated that 208 million online bank accounts exist today. From a bad actor’s perspective, that represents 208 million vulnerability points that can only be reached through the effective use of bots.

To hack into an existing account, attackers need a valid username-password combination, which is where credential stuffing comes into play. Credential stuffing – a prevalent type of account takeover attack that exploits existing username-password combinations to compromise user accounts – enables bad actors to create lists of valid login credentials to fuel these attacks.

Fraudsters heavily use automation for credential stuffing, making it simpler, faster and cheaper to validate dumps of credentials quickly. Our own data shows that in Q2 2023, there was a 202% increase in bots attempting to take over consumer financial accounts.

And according to recent reports, the number of online fraud attacks worldwide is growing at a faster rate than the number of valid online financial transactions. It’s estimated in the Cybersecurity Market Review that in the first quarter of 2022, online fraud attacks rose by 233% worldwide. During the same period, the number of online transactions only increased by 65%.

The Economic Cost of Credential Stuffing Attacks on Banks

Credential stuffing is on the rise because it is not only easy to execute but also fetches massive returns, especially in the financial sector. Banks face unique risks from these attacks, including unauthorized access to customer accounts, fraudulent transactions and significant financial losses. We commissioned a poll of 100 IT executives, and a majority responded that ATO attacks can cost anywhere from $50 to more than $200 per incident. When measured in the thousands, this can be a huge monetary drain for financial services.

Moreover, the reputational damage and loss of customer trust can be even more devastating.

The Gold Standard for Accountability: The Industry’s Only $1 Million Credential Stuffing Warranty

Although many banks use multiple fraud solutions, accounts are still not fully protected. Plus, there is no commercial assurance from vendors, leaving the risk of exposure and remediation costs on the banks.

At Arkose Labs, we have proven that the right pressure can effectively sabotage attacks and deter fraudsters. This is why we offer a credential stuffing warranty that covers key incident response costs up to $1 million.

Our confidence in fighting credential stuffing stems from our solution's risk decisioning and proprietary, AI-resistant enforcement challenges. Unlike other vendors that rely only on traditional bot defenses, rate limiting or blocking suspicious users, Arkose Labs does not block any user — whether genuine or a bad actor. Instead, our bot detection and mitigation evaluates traffic patterns based on items like device behavior, network anomalies and biometric data, while our challenge-response mechanism thwarts machine vision and AI solvers through a combination of sophisticated image perturbation techniques while allowing genuine users to pass through seamlessly.

We leverage the latest technologies to assess the risk associated with every user, supported by a global intelligence network that reduces member risk, enabling faster and better risk management. Our 24x7 Security Operations Center (SOC) provides proactive alerting and dedicated account management, while the ACTIR (Arkose Cyber Threat Intelligence Research) unit enhances our counterintelligence and active defenses. Our advanced technology ensures more accurate detection and effective response to threats without impeding legitimate users, ultimately reducing internal security costs.

Years of proven efficiency in fighting these attacks have provided our insurer with the confidence to back our solution with this unique warranty. Our warranty, which does not require additional payment from our partners, offers a 48-hour SLA for rapid remediation and access to a 24x7 operation center for support. We stand with our partners to protect them from credential stuffing attempts.

In the unlikely event of a successful credential stuffing attack, we will cover all costs associated with compromised accounts, including consultation efforts, forensics, customer awareness and employee time or salaries. We simplify the claims process by reimbursing the costs ourselves, rather than routing them through the insurance carrier, setting a new gold standard for warranty.

Conclusion

Arkose Labs is dedicated to making security more accountable and transparent with assured protection from credential stuffing attacks. To learn how Arkose Labs is revolutionizing credential stuffing protection for financial institutions, contact us now.