Fraudsters don’t work alone — your fraud prevention team shouldn’t either

By André Ferraz, CEO & Co-Founder of Incognia

In the digital underworld, collaboration is currency. Fraudsters operate as sophisticated networks — sharing stolen credentials, stress-testing security defenses and refining tactics in real time across dark web forums. Meanwhile, many businesses rely on fragmented, siloed fraud prevention strategies, yielding exploitable gaps in their defenses. The asymmetry is striking: criminals collaborate while companies compete. To effectively counter today’s fraud landscape, businesses must embrace a collaborative mindset that extends beyond internal teams to industry-wide cooperation.

Fraudsters thrive on collaboration

Bad actors exploit credential dumps from data breaches, deploy generative AI to craft convincing phishing schemes and use deepfakes to impersonate victims — tactics that often succeed because fraudsters work together, sharing intelligence and adapting quickly to new defenses.

Consider this: a fraudster banned from one financial platform can pivot within hours using shared resources like botnets, device farms or stolen identities. Most fraud attempts now come from organized rings, not individuals. This coordination gives criminals an edge over businesses operating in isolation, plugging one hole only for another to open.

Imagine a world where identifying a fraudster on one platform triggers immediate protective action across an entire ecosystem. This is possible, but only if businesses break down competitive barriers and work together against a common enemy.

Breaking down internal silos first

Before collaborating externally, organizations need to address their internal inefficiencies. Fraud impacts every department — from marketing campaigns to IT systems to customer service interactions — yet these teams often operate independently. The result is missed connections between data points that could reveal coordinated fraudulent activity.

Take promotional abuse: Fraudsters exploit referral programs or discounts designed to attract new customers. Without collaboration between marketing and fraud prevention teams, these schemes can go undetected until they cause significant financial damage.

To improve internal collaboration, companies should:

• Create cross-functional fraud prevention teams with representatives from marketing, customer service, finance, and IT
• Establish regular threat intelligence sharing sessions across departments
• Set shared objectives with clear metrics (reduced false positives, improved detection speed)
• Develop unified dashboards that visualize fraud patterns across the organization

Leveraging technology for smarter collaboration

Technology serves as both the battleground and solution in modern fraud prevention. Unified fraud prevention platforms centralize data, allowing teams to analyze threats collectively. Behavioral analytics provides a holistic view of user activities, making it easier to spot anomalies or patterns indicative of fraud.

Machine learning enhances detection by identifying hidden patterns across large datasets that manual methods might miss. Analysts can uncover links between seemingly unrelated activities — connections that often reveal organized fraud networks.

Adaptive authentication balances security with user experience. Location-based verification or risk-based authentication adjusts scrutiny-based risk levels – high-risk transactions require additional verification, while low-risk activities proceed seamlessly. By unifying data access, each verification layer reinforces the overall fraud prevention framework.

The case for industry-wide collaboration

Fraud is an industry-wide challenge demanding collective action. Businesses can strengthen defenses by sharing intelligence through fraud consortiums and industry initiatives focused on combating fraud.

Consider the success of public-private partnerships like FS-ISAC’s Phishing Prevention Framework or CISA’s Cybersecurity Collaboration Center. These initiatives enable organizations to share anonymized data about fraud patterns or suspicious activity in real time, helping identify emerging threats faster than any single entity could on its own. Industry standards for fraud reporting could further improve coordination. A structured abuse reporting system—similar to FS-ISAC’s framework—would allow companies to efficiently share actionable data while maintaining privacy and compliance.

Industry conferences and working groups also provide valuable opportunities for knowledge exchange. By sharing best practices, businesses can adopt more effective strategies without compromising competitive advantages.

Proactive, layered fraud prevention

Improved collaboration shifts fraud prevention from reactive to proactive, enabling businesses to anticipate threats and act before damage occurs. Predictive analytics helps identify vulnerabilities, such as a travel company detecting unusual booking patterns from specific IP addresses—often a sign of coordinated fraud. By acting early and sharing this intelligence across platforms, companies can prevent similar attacks elsewhere while strengthening collective defenses. Regular cross-department training further enhances security, ensuring employees—especially customer service teams—recognize fraud signals and contribute to prevention efforts.

A united front against fraud

By fostering collaboration both internally and externally, organizations build more resilient fraud defense systems. The strongest strategies harness the collective intelligence across teams, industry partners and technology. While this type of collaboration may lead to companies having to tackle some challenges, like data privacy concerns and resource allocations, companies that make collaboration a core mindset — uniting cross-functional teamwork and industry partnerships — will be best equipped to combat evolving threats. In the fight against fraud, our greatest weapon is the willingness to work together.

About the author

André Ferraz is CEO & Co-Founder of Incognia, the innovator of next-generation identity solutions.

Article Topics

cybersecurity  |  digital identity  |  fraud prevention  |  generative AI  |  Incognia