Account Takeover Risks & Mitigation Measures for Businesses

Account takeovers (ATOs) are one of the most significant threats to the security of your business online. They happen when a cybercriminal gains unauthorized access to a business, user, or employee account. This often results in account takeover fraud, which is not only costly, but also results in the loss of customer trust, legal problems, and damage to your reputation.

In this blog post, we will look at account takeover risks and what measures you can take to mitigate those risks.

Understanding Account Takeovers

Cybercriminals can take over an account through many techniques, such as credential stuffing, phishing, social engineering, brute-force attacks, and malware attacks. Vulnerabilities in web applications, operating systems, and user account protections are common attack vectors for entry into an account. Even if your systems are up-to-date and you believe you’re secure, cybercriminals are constantly evolving their techniques to find ways around your existing cybersecurity setup.

The main motivation behind ATO, as with most other types of fraud, is financial gain. For example, a cybercriminal who gains access to a user account on an e-commerce website can use that account to make unauthorized purchases or transfer funds. This will eventually lead to a chargeback for your business and can result in significant financial losses when it happens at scale. Other cybercriminals are after sensitive data, personal identifiable information (PII), or login credentials to sell on the dark web.

ATOs happen in a wide range of industries, including finance, healthcare, e-commerce, and social media. While no industry is entirely safe, ATOs are generally more common in industries with a large volume of user or customer accounts—such as gaming, retail, and telecommunications. Overall, cybercriminals aren’t particularly selective with their ATO attacks. Anyone can be targeted, although you can prevent account takeover attacks with the right security measures.

The Consequences of Account Takeovers

Every business owner knows how hard it is to build trust with customers—and how easy it is to lose it. It only takes one large, successful ATO attack to lose your customers’ trust. They may think twice before shopping with you again, which can lead to a severe and sudden decline in revenue for your business.

Additionally, data privacy frameworks such as GDPR for the EU and CCPA for California impose hefty fines on companies who fail to adequately protect the personal information of their users. If a cybercriminal gains access to bank account details, social security numbers, or biometric data, you’re at risk for a fine. With GDPR, you could be fined up to 4% of your total global turnover of the preceding fiscal year. Suffice to say, the consequences of ATOs are serious.

What puts your business at risk of account takeover?

There are several factors that put your business at risk of ATOs, but below are the most common ones. The first step in reducing your business’ risk is understanding if any of these apply:

• Weak or easy-to-guess passwords.
• No regular password updates.
• A lack of multi-factor authentication.
• Improperly configured encryption protocols.

ATO Techniques Used by Attackers

Phishing Attacks & Social Engineering Tactics

Cybercriminals often utilize phishing or social engineering tactics to gain access to user, employee, or business accounts—using email, text, or phone calls to reach their victims. Not all suspicious emails go directly to spam—and those that get through spam filters are particularly dangerous.

Phishing and social engineering usually involves tricking victims into clicking on links to counterfeit login pages, from which cybercriminals can extract whatever credentials or personal information is typed in. They then use those credentials to gain access to a victim’s real account.

Credential Stuffing & Brute-Force Attacks

Cybercriminals often use automated scripts or bots for ATO attacks against people who use the same password across several accounts. They either obtain credentials from the dark web and test those out on other websites (credential stuffing), or they let their bots run through a large number of commonly-used password combinations until they hit the jackpot (brute-force attack). Because this is all automated, the cybercriminal can take over several accounts without much effort.

Malware & Keylogging Techniques

A malware attack—usually performed via a trojan horse, virus, or worm—exploits devices that run on outdated security protocols and software updates. Such malware can capture keystrokes, redirect a victim to counterfeit login pages, or obtain personal information stored locally on the computer. Once installed, malware can be particularly hard to detect, as it’s in the criminal’s best interests their malware stays hidden.

Proactive ATO Mitigation Measures

Monitoring & Threat Intelligence Tools

The right monitoring and threat intelligence tool will analyze user activity data to detect unusual patterns, helping you seriously reduce the risk of a corporate account takeover. Often with the use of sophisticated machine learning and AI, the right tool will immediately flag suspicious activity and identify ATO fraud. The best tools will stop ATO fraud before a cybercriminal can even break into an account.

Employee Training & Awareness Programs

Employee education is critical to reduce the risk of ATOs. In 2021, Microsoft saw a 50% reduction in employee susceptibility to phishing after simulation training. Regular and comprehensive training educates employees on how to recognize phishing attacks, social engineering tactics, and other risks associated with ATOs. Employee training is crucial because humans are often the weakest link in the security chain.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

MFA makes it significantly harder for someone to break into a user, employee, or business account, because users must enter another authentication factor alongside their credentials. The chances of a hacker having access to both is unlikely. MFA is an additional layer of protection that’s easy to implement and drastically improves the security of your accounts.

ATO Examples

In 2019, the automotive giant Toyota lost $37 million to a business email compromise (BEC) scam. Hackers presented themselves as a business partner of a Toyota subsidiary through emails to Toyota’s finance and account department, requesting a payment of $37 million. Because Toyota is such a large organization, and because the email was so convincing, the employees sent the money. Only when similar BEC attacks began happening in different Toyota subsidiaries did the company realize they were under attack.

In another more recent case, hackers attacked oil company Suncor Energy in June 2023 and blocked their customers from using credit or debit cards at the company’s chain of Petro-Canada gas stations. Employees were also unable to log into their own internal accounts, suggesting a comprehensive ATO attack was happening across the company.

Keep Accounts Secure With DataDome Account Protect

ATO poses a serious risk to any business, but there are ways to avoid making yourself a target. For one, use strong and regularly updated passwords with MFA for your accounts. Nudge your users or customers to enable MFA too. Secondly, regularly educate your employees on the risks of ATOs, and especially the risk of phishing and social engineering tactics. Thirdly, use a threat intelligence tool to flag suspicious account activity.

But there’s a fourth way to reduce account takeover risk too. Because cybercriminals rely so heavily on bots and automated scripts to get into accounts, specialized account takeover protection software is extremely effective. Such software identifies and blocks those bots from ever accessing your websites, mobile apps, and APIs.

DataDome Account Protect is a powerful anti-ATO tool that identifies suspicious activity on your users accounts and stops fraud at the source. Account Protect analyzes a set of signals to identify even the most subtle anomalies—from usernames, to browser and device verification, to geolocation and session history. Our multiple layers of machine learning sift through the smallest details to identify account fraud with industry-leading precision. Book an Account Protect demo today to fight account fraud automatically around the clock, protecting your customers and your peace of mind.

Account Takeover FAQs

What are some common indicators of an account takeover?

Common indicators of an ATO include unauthorized changes to account information, unusual login activity from unfamiliar locations, unexpected password resets, unrecognized transactions or purchases, and receiving notifications or emails about account activity that you didn’t initiate. Stay vigilant and immediately report any suspicious activity to protect your account.

What is the difference between identity theft and account takeover?

Identity theft involves stealing someone’s personal information to commit fraud, whereas ATO refers to unauthorized access and control of an existing account on the Internet. Identity theft is broader and can lead to various crimes, while ATO specifically means the unauthorized use of an online account by obtaining its credentials.

What is the typical method of account takeover?

The typical methods of ATO include phishing attacks, where fake emails or websites trick users into revealing their login credentials, as well as brute-force attacks that systematically try different combinations of usernames and passwords. Other methods include social engineering, malware infections, credential stuffing, and exploiting weak security measures or password reuse by users.