Cybercrime is now not the area of remoted hackers working from dimly lit basements. In response to a latest research by cybersecurity agency Radware, right now’s menace actors are working advanced, service-based companies that rival the sophistication of reliable tech enterprises—posing important dangers to monetary providers and fintech suppliers.
As we’ve got simply witnessed with the run of assaults on superannuation firms in Australia, deliberate, coordinated and focused assaults are able to breaching cyber defences and exposing prospects (and corporations) to the chance of economic theft.
Radware’s analysis workforce analysed greater than 26,000 threads throughout 46 deep-web hacker boards, uncovering a thriving underground economic system that now operates on subscription fashions, bundles of assault instruments, and automatic social engineering ways. Right here’s what fintech leaders and cybersecurity groups must know.
1. InfoStealer-as-a-Service: Malware Constructed for Scale and Specialisation
A key discovering from Radware’s report is the speedy growth of the infostealer economic system, which is now organized right into a service-based mannequin. These malicious instruments, designed to extract delicate data like login credentials and browser information, at the moment are marketed with modular plug-ins, compatibility options, and buyer help.
Builders are concentrating on distinct buyer segments:
- Particular person hackers get entry to low-cost, user-friendly instruments.
- Superior Persistent Menace (APT) teams are supplied enterprise-targeted options. One malware variant, Mystic Stealer, for instance, is optimised to extract credentials from Microsoft Outlook—making it a tailor-made menace for monetary establishments and corporates.
Notably, 56% of infostealer mentions throughout deep-web boards now relate to those service choices, underscoring a rising productisation of cybercrime.
2. Credential-as-a-Service: Breach-as-a-Subscription
The idea of breached credentials being traded on hacker boards isn’t new—however now, they’re accessible on subscription-based “credential clouds” that provide each day or weekly updates sorted by geography and trade.
Platforms like Combo Cloud have seen a 46% enhance in mentions since 2022, reflecting their rising recognition. The supply strategies have advanced too, shifting away from static textual content information to extra dynamic and user-friendly interfaces.
For fintech companies, this implies credential leaks are now not a one-off danger—they’re a part of a recurring menace mannequin, up to date in near-real time.
3. OTP Bots: Social Engineering Will get Automated
Among the many most alarming developments is the automation of two-factor authentication (2FA) bypasses by way of OTP bots. Operated over Telegram, these bots impersonate banks and digital service suppliers, tricking prospects into revealing their one-time passwords.
Right here’s how the rip-off unfolds:
- A menace actor launches a credential stuffing assault utilizing breached username-password pairs.
- When login makes an attempt fail attributable to 2FA, the accounts are flagged for follow-up.
- The attacker makes use of a Telegram-based OTP bot to contact the sufferer by way of voice or SMS, impersonating the financial institution and requesting the OTP “for verification functions.”
- As soon as the code is offered, the attacker beneficial properties full management of the account—altering passwords and locking out the unique person.
Radware discovered 1,354 mentions of OTP bots in 2024 alone, a 31% year-over-year rise. These bots value as little as $10 to $50 per assault, making them accessible to a large swath of cybercriminals.
4. DDoS-as-a-Service: AI-Enhanced and Accessible to All
Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) assaults are evolving quickly. The DDoS-as-a-service market now consists of 34 distinct instruments, some with over 196,000 followers. What’s extra, assaults will be launched from a smartphone for beneath $50.
AI is starting to play a major position. One software, Pressured Cat, launched in Might 2024, makes use of AI to unravel captchas—permitting attackers to overwhelm web sites that beforehand relied on these instruments for primary bot mitigation.
Fintech platforms—particularly these with client-facing portals and APIs—must brace for this subsequent era of smarter, quicker, and harder-to-block DDoS threats.
Key Takeaways for Fintech Companies
Radware’s report makes one factor clear: cybercrime has matured right into a decentralised service economic system, mirroring the SaaS growth of reliable tech.
The implications for fintech are pressing:
- Static safety postures are now not ample.
- Menace intelligence have to be steady, exterior, and deeply embedded in safety operations.
- Buyer training and 2FA hardening should evolve alongside attacker ways.
Cybersecurity isn’t nearly firewalls and fraud detection anymore—it’s about understanding your adversary’s enterprise mannequin. And in 2025, that enterprise is booming.