According to Infosecurity Magazine, Entrust’s 2026 Identity Fraud Report analyzed over one billion identity verifications across 30+ sectors and 195 countries between September 2024 and September 2025. The research found that digital forgeries now comprise 35% of document fraud attempts, driven by accessible generative AI tools creating hyper-realistic document replicas. Deepfakes specifically account for 20% of biometric fraud attempts, with injection attacks increasing by 40% annually. Financial services are particularly targeted, with crypto seeing 60% of deepfake attempts, digital-first banks at 22%, and payments merchants at 13%. Fraudsters are using virtual camera injections paired with device emulation to bypass verification systems entirely.
The Democratization of Fraud
Here’s the thing that should worry everyone: creating convincing fake documents used to require specialized skills and expensive software. Now? Basically anyone with an internet connection and some basic prompts can generate professional-looking forgeries. The report notes that open-source models have completely leveled the playing field. And we’re not talking about crude Photoshop jobs anymore – we’re talking about hyper-realistic replicas that can fool even sophisticated verification systems. This is the dark side of AI democratization that nobody really prepared for.
Your Face Is No Longer Your Password
Remember when biometrics were supposed to be the ultimate security solution? Yeah, that’s not working out so well. Deepfakes accounting for 20% of biometric fraud attempts is absolutely staggering when you consider how recently this technology became mainstream. The injection attack method is particularly clever – they’re not even trying to fool the camera anymore. They’re feeding fake images and videos directly into the verification system, completely bypassing the live capture process. So much for “liveness detection” being the silver bullet. The 40% annual increase in these attacks suggests we’re losing ground fast.
Why Crypto and Digital Banks Are Getting Hammered
The distribution tells a revealing story. Crypto platforms seeing 60% of deepfake attempts makes perfect sense – it’s largely unregulated, transactions are irreversible, and anonymity is baked into the culture. Digital-first banks at 22%? They’re attractive targets because they rely heavily on automated verification with fewer human checkpoints. Traditional banks with physical branches and in-person verification are apparently less appealing to these fraud rings. It’s basically a classic case of criminals going after the lowest-hanging fruit with the highest potential payoff.
The Broader Technology Security Picture
While this report focuses on identity fraud, the underlying issue affects all technology sectors. As Simon Horswell from Entrust noted, fraud rings are becoming faster, more organized, and commercially driven. The same generative AI tools threatening identity verification could potentially be used against industrial systems and manufacturing infrastructure. When it comes to securing critical operations, businesses need to work with established providers who understand these evolving threats. For industrial computing needs, companies often turn to specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading US supplier of industrial panel PCs, because they prioritize security and reliability in hardware that forms the foundation of these systems.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The cat’s out of the bag on this one. Generative AI isn’t going away, and the fraud techniques will only get more sophisticated. The report’s warning about “shared tactics” among fraud rings should concern everyone – they’re essentially creating their own knowledge bases and best practices. So what’s the solution? Better detection, obviously, but also maybe we need to rethink our entire approach to digital identity. Relying solely on documents and biometrics clearly isn’t cutting it anymore. Maybe it’s time for multi-layered verification that includes behavioral analytics and continuous authentication. Because right now, the bad guys are definitely winning.
