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Fraud is evolving faster than most organizations can update their controls. As hiring, onboarding, contracting, and customer workflows move online, fraudsters are no longer “testing the edges”: they’re targeting the core of digital operations, like identity, documents, and trust signals.
For HR leaders, that means credential fraud and impersonation risk in remote hiring. For CIOs, it means exposure across SaaS platforms, integrations, and APIs. For compliance teams, it means heightened scrutiny around audit trails, data protection, and legally defensible transactions.
The challenge is not only that fraud is rising: it’s that tactics are becoming more automated and AI-enabled. In Europe alone, payment fraud within the European Economic Area reached €4.2 billion in 2024, up from €3.5 billion in 2023, according to an ECB-referenced report, highlighting how fraud keeps climbing even as authentication strengthens.
To stay ahead, organizations need more than point solutions. They need Digital Transaction Management (DTM) built with fraud prevention in mind: identity verification, document integrity, electronic signatures, secure archiving, and continuous monitoring, all working together.
The new playbook: emerging fraud tactics you can’t ignore
1) Deepfake-driven identity fraud
Generative AI has made impersonation far more scalable. Identity verification systems are increasingly targeted with deepfaked selfies, synthetic video, and replay attacks designed to defeat biometric checks. In its Identity Fraud Report, Entrust estimates deepfake attempts occurred about every five minutes in 2024, underscoring the shift from “rare” to “industrialized.”
What makes this especially dangerous is that deepfakes don’t just fool humans, they aim to fool automated checks, especially when liveness detection is weak or when identity flows rely on a single factor.
DTM countermeasure: Pair identity verification (IDV) with stronger liveness checks and risk scoring, and require higher assurance for high-risk transactions (e.g., contract changes, bank detail updates, credential issuance).
2) Document fraud and “clean-looking” forgeries
Fraudsters aren’t always creating fake documents from scratch. They often alter legitimate files, changing names, dates, salary figures, bank details, or address information, then reusing them across workflows.
This kind of document tampering can be hard to spot manually, especially at scale. Some reports detail that digital document forgeries increased 244% year-over-year, between 2024 and 2025, an explosion that highlights the risks for all sectors dealing with digital transactions.
DTM countermeasure: Use AI-powered document intelligence to verify integrity, detect inconsistencies, validate expiration and completeness, and cross-check data across documents (intra- and inter-document controls).
3) Social engineering plus “authorized push” fraud
Not all fraud is purely technical. Many modern scams manipulate the user: employees, customers, or partners; to approve a transaction that looks legitimate. The ECB has pointed to a rise in manipulation tactics even as strong customer authentication remains effective overall.
DTM countermeasure: Add friction only when risk is high: step-up authentication, confirmation flows for sensitive actions, and tamper-evident audit trails that make unusual approvals visible and reviewable.
4) Account takeover and credential abuse
Credential stuffing and account takeover (ATO) thrive in ecosystems where identity is fragmented across tools. This is especially relevant for HR platforms (candidate portals), finance systems (vendor onboarding), and contract workflows (approvals). When attackers gain access, they can change details, reroute payments, or sign documents as legitimate users.
DTM countermeasure: Apply behavioral analytics, anomaly detection, and transaction-level controls, not just login security. Tie signing authority and approvals to verified identities and enforce role-based controls.
Why Digital Transaction Management is a fraud control strategy (not just workflow software)
DTM is often described as “how you move agreements online.” But in practice, it’s also how you embed trust into every step of a transaction. A fraud-resistant DTM approach typically combines:
- Identity verification (who is acting?)
- Document analysis (is the content authentic and complete?)
- Electronic signatures (is the agreement legally binding?)
- Secure archiving (can you prove it later?)
- Audit trails & monitoring (can you detect anomalies and demonstrate compliance?)
This layered model matters because fraud rarely happens in a single moment—it happens across a chain of actions. The most resilient organizations design controls around the entire journey, not a single checkpoint.
Where Signaturit Group fits as an enabler
For organizations looking to strengthen fraud defenses without sacrificing user experience, Signaturit Group is an example of a DTM enabler that brings these layers together—combining electronic signature, identity verification, document intelligence, and legally robust evidence in a unified workflow. That matters for regulated industries where it’s not enough to “block fraud”; you must also demonstrate compliance, data protection, and non-repudiation.
In practical terms, this means designing flows where:
- a signer’s identity can be verified at the right assurance level,
- documents are automatically checked for integrity and completeness,
- signatures are captured with strong legal value,
- and evidence is securely stored for audits and dispute resolution.
What HR, CIO, and Compliance should do next?
To move from reactive to resilient, align on three priorities:
- Map fraud risk to transaction types
Not every workflow needs the same controls. Identify your high-risk moments: onboarding, bank detail changes, credential issuance, and contract approvals.
- Adopt layered verification (not single checks)
Identity + document + behavior signals outperform any single measure—especially against AI-enabled fraud.
- Treat auditability as a feature, not paperwork
If you can’t prove who did what, when, and how, you don’t have true fraud resilience. Strong audit trails and trusted archiving reduce regulatory exposure and shorten investigations.
Closing thought: staying ahead means designing for change
Fraud tactics will keep shifting, especially as AI lowers the barrier to entry for sophisticated attacks. But organizations can stay ahead by building digital transactions on a foundation of verified identity, document integrity, legal-grade signatures, and continuous monitoring.
In short: modern fraud isn’t solved by one tool. It’s countered by trust-by-design digital transaction management—the kind that scales security and usability together.
