As financial services firms digitize their operations, they face a growing wave of automated threats designed to exploit vulnerabilities at scale. Adversarial automation refers to the use of scripts, bots, agentic artificial intelligence, and other automated systems by malicious actors to commit fraud, abuse promotions, or extract sensitive data. These threats present a unique challenge, operating with speed, massive volume, and precision far beyond that of manual attacks. 

This panel will examine the multifaceted impact of adversarial automation on financial institutions, with a focus on three primary pain points: application fraud, promo abuse, and data breaches. Application fraud involves the use of synthetic identities or stolen credentials submitted through automated means to gain unauthorized access to services and resources. Promo abuse occurs when bots exploit sign-up bonuses or referral programs at a high volume, distorting marketing metrics and driving financial losses. Data breaches are often initiated through automated credential-stuffing attacks, which test stolen credentials against login portals to gain illicit access to consumer accounts. 

Financial services firms are leveraging defensive automation strategies to address these risks. Solutions such as bot detection, device ID, behavioral analytics, and real-time risk scoring help identify and mitigate suspicious activity. In particular, the use of consortium data—shared intelligence across institutions—enhances threat detection by identifying patterns of abuse that span multiple organizations.