The financial industry continues to face the highest volume of social media abuse compared to any other sector. In Q3, banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions accounted for nearly 75% of all attacks on social platforms. National banks, in particular, experienced a surge—tripling the attack volume seen by the most-targeted non-financial sector: retail.
The most common threats targeting financial institutions on social media include fraud, impersonation, and cyberattacks such as account takeovers or hacking attempts. These attacks can cause serious reputational damage and financial loss. While it’s critical to respond swiftly and decisively to social media threats, identifying abuse and successfully removing it can be challenging.
In this blog, we outline best practices for detecting and mitigating social media threats that target financial institutions.
Common Threats & Their Digital Hiding Places
The most common social media threats targeting financial institutions fall into three main categories: fraud, cyber threats, and impersonation. Fraud includes activities such as the unauthorized sale of account credentials, exposure of banking details, and other schemes aimed at illicit financial gain. Cyber threats encompass any actions that introduce cyber risk, including hacking and unauthorized access attempts. Impersonation is a frequent element across most attacks, with threat actors leveraging stolen trademarks, brand imagery, or executive identities to deceive victims.
These threats typically appear on compromised or criminally controlled accounts and posts, often replicating a financial institution’s branding—including logos, language, and visuals—to appear legitimate. While these attacks occur across a wide range of platforms, they are especially concentrated on major social media networks.
Most leading platforms provide reporting mechanisms to flag malicious content. Security teams should gather and submit all relevant information tied to suspicious activity—both direct and indirect indicators. Building strong relationships with platform providers is essential to accelerate takedown processes and reduce the window of exposure.
What’s Required for a Successful Takedown
While brand impersonation is a common tactic used by threat actors to pose as trusted banks or credit unions, brand abuse is not always immediately obvious on social media posts or profiles. Most platforms require clear, verifiable evidence of fraud or abuse to justify content removal. Security teams should be prepared to submit all available evidence when requesting a takedown.
Key mitigation criteria includes:
Use of logos, trademarks, or copyrighted material
Context suggesting fraudulent or misleading intent
Direct references to the financial institution with signs of attempted financial fraud
Violations of platform terms of service
Any supporting context or pattern of abuse tied to the suspicious post or page
Threat actors frequently include malicious links and spoofed domains in social media content to redirect victims to harmful third-party websites. Security teams should submit:
All active links pointing to malicious or fraudulent content
Any look-alike domains designed to mimic the brand
Because attackers can quickly alter or sanitize content once it's flagged, it’s critical to document evidence before it changes. Historical security data, such as platform security feeds and snapshots of prior activity, can provide essential proof of abuse.
To accelerate detection and takedown, security teams should proactively monitor social platforms, gather relevant abuse data, and maintain strong relationships with platform providers to streamline the removal process.
To learn more about threats on social media, check out, "Navigating Social Media Threats: A Digital Risk Protection." And to better protect your followers, reputation, and revenue from social media threats, schedule a demo with Fortra Brand Protection.
