Episode Transcript
Charles Goldberg: Hello, and welcome to the Intellicheck podcast. This is the show where we delve into the news and issues surrounding identity verification, identity fraud, and the tools needed to combat them. I'm Charles Goldberg, your host for this episode, Account Takeover. What the industry is getting wrong. And my guest with all the answers is Bryan Lewis, the CEO of Intellicheck.
Bryan Lewis: Happy to be here. And maybe not all the answers, but some of them for sure.
Charles Goldberg: All right, well, Bryan, we'll put you to the test.
So today's topic is about account takeover, or referred to as ATO. It's a huge industry issue. In the FBI's annual IC3 report for 2025, account takeover was identified as a growing threat for the first time in that report, with 4,700 complaints and about $360 million in losses. This figure only includes Americans who took the time to contact the FBI, which is likely a small group of victims. The analyst firm Javelin says for 2025, account takeover losses remain the costliest fraud type, exceeding $15 billion and impacting 6 million people. And it grew by 18%.
And according to TransUnion's first half, 2026, top fraud trends update. Digital. Right. So online ATO fraud was up a whopping 37% from 2024 to 2025. Think about all the digital fraud you hear about that's out there. It's an endless list in the news every day.
Yeah, account takeover is now over 3% of digital fraud. So, you know, that's how you get into the billions and billions of dollars. All right, so, Bryan, can you give our audience a little background on what type of accounts are most impacted by ATO?
Bryan Lewis: I think there's three main areas where, you know, we're seeing account takeover. One is basic credit cards. Two is bank accounts and loans, and three is digital online, social media and email accounts. Right. So if you think about it, so much about you is known online.
So they know where you have credit cards. And almost every place will let you go in and say, I forgot my credit card. And they'll look you up and they will buy merchandise in your name. They can do that both online and in person.
In the banking world, we're seeing it where somebody walks in and says, hey, I don't. I lost my debit card, but I need to pull out $3,000.
Or in certain states, if you have a loan or like a HELOC, it is publicly registered information how much it is and what the bank account number is. And people go in and pretend to be you and take money out on that. And then finally when I'm saying, you know, like email, you know, people will call up and say, I need to figure out how to reset my password.
And if you. The scariest bit about is if somebody can reset your email, they can reset your life. Because most password resets will allow you to do that through email. Now if I can log in as you on your email, you know, I could change your banking, your investment accounts, I mean, all those types of things. And I think that's why the bad guys are going for it more, because the haul is bigger, you know, when I do account takeover as opposed to just, you know, new account opening, identity theft, because there'll be limits to that size.
Whereas with account takeover, I can take everything you have.
Charles Goldberg: And it's not hard. Right. Most of those challenge questions are like, who's your best friend from high school? Where were you born? Right. I mean, a lot of that stuff's just easy to figure out from your social media, you know, footprint.
Bryan Lewis: Right, absolutely. I remember crazy years ago at a different company and I was traveling internationally and somebody that worked with me needed to get into, you know, one of my accounts. But I was, you know, basically 12 hours away just by knowing me. She knew every one of my challenge questions and got into my account, you know, and thankfully it wasn't for nefarious reasons. She was doing something good. But I mean, we're all kind of known, it's all shown, you know, and, and it's available data and often that data is data that has been hacked already.
Right. So it is scary. You know, 2FA isn't working like it used to.
You know, SIM swapping is becoming much more common, so people need stronger methods to do what they're doing.
Charles Goldberg: So this ATO problem, you know, you mentioned, and I don't carry my Macy's credit card, how many credit cards can I carry? But yeah, I go into Macy's, I want my extra discounts, I say, yep, look me up. And.
Bryan Lewis: And they do.
Charles Goldberg: Right.
And then we just talked about the digital world and with email. So is ATO fraud more of an in real life problem, you know, in person, or is it more of a digital online issue?
Bryan Lewis: I'd say it's both. Right. We certainly know from, you know, our in store credit cards, you know, account lookup is four times more common than a new account opening. And it's much easier because, you know, in this day and age, so many people have locks on their, you know, credit lookups. So you can't, you know, if I want to open up a new credit card. But you know, it's easy to turn on and off with the credit bureaus, whether somebody can hit my credit report, which they're not going to give you credit unless they can do that. But an account lookup doesn't require a credit hit.
So that's why I think they're going after that even more. Because knowing where I have credit cards. You mean that, that stuff's been hacked, right? It's for sale on the dark web and sometimes even on the bright web. Right, because you can buy all these fake IDs not only in the dark web but also on the bright web.
So they're going after that because the things we have in place to hopefully stop identity theft don't work when you already have the credit.
Charles Goldberg: Right, yeah, that makes sense. Makes it a low hanging fruit target. Right.
Money is literally there for the taking. You don't have to open the account to try to even get to that point.
Okay, so ATO — ubiquitous, growing problem. Growing digitally, but certainly an in person problem.
So back to the topic. What is the industry getting so wrong that they can't get control of this problem? And it's costing them just billions and billions of dollars and, and trust, you know, with millions of customers.
Bryan Lewis: I think part of it is the systems in place to figure out who you are don't really work and are getting less effective.
In the age of AI, most companies, you know, banks, retailers, whatever, you know, are either relying on just, you know, the teller or the clerk looking at the license and saying, hey, that looks real.
You know, and I always say this all the time. I worked in Manhattan for 33 years. I lived in New Jersey. If you asked me what a New York license looked like, I would have no idea. Right. We don't see it. So vice versa. So how's that clerk going to be able to tell just by looking at it. And then. So. Okay, well, we're going to go to, you know, an AI system that is going to compare a photo of that license to a template.
But AI makes the template and the fake look almost exactly right now, you know, and what I think we bring to the table is, you know, the relationships we've had with DMVs, you know, since the mid-90s.
There's so much hidden security features in a barcode that people aren't aware of that we are.
So that's why we have so many law enforcement agencies that use us to see if a license is real and we can do it in milliseconds.
So it's, are you using the right tool is the way that I would look at it.
And are you making sure that you're not bringing so much friction into the process that you're losing a potential customer? So it's sort of a trade off.
Right system, right amount of friction, get more customers. Because everybody gets bonused on getting more customers, you know. Everybody has a fraud budget already. I need more customers. So how do we speed up, you know, and this is what I say about what we do, we speed up the acquisition of good customers and as a byproduct of that, we stop the bad guys. And I think that's why our customers really like working with us.
Charles Goldberg: And the customers of the customers, the end customers, us, the consumers.
Statistics or survey after survey says that we as consumers expect our data is being protected.
And survey after survey shows people don't mind showing some ID when they're opening an account or trying to access their own account. And in fact it makes them feel like the company is protecting them. They don't feel untrusted, they feel like the company's doing due diligence and they feel protected.
Then it has to be fast and accurate. Right. Of course, you know, patience only goes so far and we have very little of it. But we do like that people are doing their job and not just handing our money out to anyone who asks for it. Right?
Bryan Lewis: If you think about it, you know, I was just traveling on business.
Do I care when I'm checking into the hotel and they asked me for my driver's license? Absolutely not. Right. You know, same thing. If I'm, you know, I'm just like you, I don't carry my credit like store credit cards, but I like my points, you know, my driver's license then effectively becomes my credit card across every retailer that I have.
I don't need to carry them, I just need my license.
Charles Goldberg: Right.
Bryan Lewis: And you know, they scan it with the same scanning gun that you merchandise and that's enough for us to get the information to the bank who's backing that credit card to find out should they issue me that credit so I can get my points.
Charles Goldberg: Perfect. Hey, well, so there's a lot to absorb here, but we're out of time. ATO is the highest fraud loss challenge that many retailers, financial institutions, healthcare providers, even social media and email companies as you mentioned, are dealing with. So would you come back and discuss this topic further with me?
Bryan Lewis: Love to because it is big. And as you said, it is growing. Because, you know, the take that the bad guys get is much larger in this space than anything in a new account opening.
Charles Goldberg: Excellent. So that's all the time we have today. My guest on the Intellicheck podcast has been Intellicheck CEO Bryan Lewis, and we've been discussing account takeover, what the industry is getting wrong.
Be sure to check out the show notes in the description. And that's all for this week. Thank you for listening. Stay safe.
Bryan Lewis: Thank you.
