Malware attacks on Brazilian bank accounts triple in six months

Scam cases double, while overall fraud attempts increase by 56%

NEW YORK (Oct. 29, 2025) — A new report from BioCatch, which prevents financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, shows Brazilian financial institutions documented more cases of malware used to execute fraud in the first half of 2025 than they did in all of 2024. This 220% spike may result from improved detection efforts in the country, an intensification of malware attacks against Brazilian retail banking customers, or some combination of the two.

“No matter the reason or reasons for this increase,” BioCatch Director of Global Fraud Intelligence Tom Peacock said, “it means Brazilian banks must devote more time, money, and personnel toward triaging this wave of potentially automated attacks, at a time when overall fraud and especially scams are also increasing in the country.”

BioCatch’s 2025 Digital Banking Fraud Trends in Brazil report shows the company’s Brazilian customers reported twice as many social engineering scam attempts in 2025 than they did in 2024. Vishing (voice phishing) scams accounted for the majority of the increase, as half of all fraud in the country is now directly related to this scam type.

“It’s important to note that these scams are being carried out by criminal organizations with vast technological resources,” said Diego Baldin, BioCatch director of global advisory in Latin America. “Spoofing techniques that falsify phone numbers to appear official, along with the use of artificial intelligence for deepfake face-cloning and voice-cloning, highlight the lengths these criminals will go to make their schemes as convincing to consumers and undetectable to banks as possible.”

Brazil’s banking federation, Febraban, reported a 17% increase in fraud losses between 2023 and 2024, to $10.1 billion Brazilian real (R$10.1).

“In most markets, fraud executives contend with loosely affiliated domestic criminal networks,” said Trace Fooshée, Datos Insights Strategic Advisor in the fraud and AML practice. “In Brazil, they face highly organized criminal syndicates. One of the more prominent gangs is Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), which dominates São Paulo state. The PCC has evolved from executing traditional violent crime to sophisticated electronic fraud, now coordinating call center scams, identity theft, and payment fraud with focused precision.”

Other key report findings:

• Stolen device fraud triples: BioCatch customers reported three times as many fraud cases linked to stolen devices in 2025 as they did in 2024. The rise coincides with ongoing reports of street-level violence and even extortion, where fraudsters steal victim’s devices to access their bank accounts and carry out financial fraud.
• Falsa central scams double: Brazilian scammers are increasingly using personalized persuasion tactics to steal credentials and trick victims into approving transactions, often by posing as customer support or helpline agents — known in Brazil as “falsa central” scams.
• Improved collaboration expected: Datos found 80% of Brazilian bank executives expect improved inter-bank collaboration over the next five years.
• Massive losses: Digital banking fraud cost Brazil R$3 billion in 2024 alone.
  
  

Click here to view the complete report.

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About BioCatch:

BioCatch prevents financial crime by recognizing patterns in human behavior, continuously collecting more than 3,000 anonymized data points – keystroke and mouse activity, touch screen behavior, physical device attributes, and more – as people interact with their digital banking platforms. With these inputs, BioCatch's machine-learning models reveal patterns in user behavior and provide device intelligence that, together, distinguish the criminal from the legitimate. The company’s Customer Innovation Board – an industry-led initiative in partnership with American Express, Barclays, Citi Ventures, HSBC, National Australia Bank, and others – collaborates to pioneer innovative ways of leveraging customer relationships for improved fraud detection. Today, more than 30 of the world's largest 100 banks and 311 total financial institutions deploy BioCatch solutions, analyzing 16.1 billion user sessions per month and protecting more than 555 million people on more than 1.6 billion devices around the world from fraud and financial crime.

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PR contact:

Mac King
BioCatch director of global marketing communications
Mac.King@BioCatch.com