Introducing the
Fraud Kill Chain

A comprehensive framework to empower fraud and fusion professionals globally

The Fraud Kill Chain is developed to systematically identify, mitigate, and disrupt fraud and scam activities across digital ecosystems.

The Fraud Kill Chain is specifically developed for fraud and scams. It breaks them down into distinct stages—from reconnaissance and attack planning, to psychological manipulation, monetization and money laundering. The Fraud Kill Chain allows organizations to dissect fraud MOs, identify gaps, and plan mitigations. Its helps to share information, enhance real-time detection, strengthen online channels, and reduce customer losses. This approach is developed in real operational environments, with online fraud, scams, account takeovers, device manipulation and payment scams.

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Use cases for the Fraud Kill Chain

Find out if the Fraud Kill Chain will support your Fraud Prevention strategy:

Explore the Fraud Kill Chain
  • Structure Cyber Fraud Intelligence: Organize and categorize fraud intelligence using the Fraud Kill Chain to better understand and respond to threats.
  • Share Information with Industry Partners: Collaborate by sharing insights and data structured around the Fraud Kill Chain to enhance collective defense.
  • Identify Gaps in Fraud Prevention: Assess your current fraud prevention measures against the Fraud Kill Chain to find and address weaknesses.
  • Build Detection Rules & Models: Use identified gaps to create or improve your Detection Rules and Models.
  • Casually Learn More: Use the Fraud Kill Chain as an educational tool to stay informed about the latest cyber fraud tactics and techniques.

What Experts Are Saying

★★★★★

“Implementing the Fraud Kill Chain has revolutionized our approach to fraud prevention. It has allowed us to stay ahead of potential threats and secure our clients’ assets with greater confidence.”

Senan Moloney

Global Head of Cyber Fraud Fusion
Barclays

★★★★★

“I Have been implementing Fraud Fusion programmes globally for years. I’ve seen, first hand, the benefits of adoping a strong common topology across Threat Intel and Fraud Prevention.”

Jake Norwood

Head of EU & UK Cybersecurity Business
Booz Allen Hamilton

★★★★★

“Fraud and scams cost more than money: livelihoods, comfidence and trust are at stake. I’ve seen that a lack of common topology can slow collaboration down. That’s why we support this.”

Han Sahin

CEO
ThreatFabric

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is the Fraud Kill Chain?

The Fraud Kill Chain is a comprehensive framework that helps organizations identify, disrupt, and mitigate fraudulent activities effectively.

How does the Fraud Kill Chain work?

The Fraud Kill Chain is a 8 phase topology that allows Fraud and Fusion professionals to map Fraud MOs and Mitigations to a common topology. This will allow them to perform gap analysis, define mitigation strategies, and improve Fraud and Scam detection.

Who can benefit from the Fraud Kill Chain?

Anyone working in fraud, fraud prevention, fusion, threat intelligence, fincrime or AML may benefit from using the Fraud Kill Chain.

Why not use Mitre ATT&CK?

Mitre ATT&CK is amazing for structuring network intrusions, red teaming and incident response. The Fraud Kill Chain is particularly effective for fraud and scam prevention as well as financial crime (fincrime), because it provides a structured and comprehensive framework that standardizes the definition of fraud attacks across different phases, from preparation to post-fraud money laundering. It leverages financial information types as well as psychological manipulation, and bridges the gap between threat intelligence and fraud prevention teams, enabling rapid and consistent information sharing.

What about [this initiative] that seems to address similar issues?
We applaud their efforts! Since a fraud and scam centric topology hasn’t been standardised, some forward thinking people have identified the need for one, and are working on several initiatives. They are all to be commended for their efforts, and we are actually speaking to several of them. The goal of this website is to encourage collaboration and sharing, and by sharing our work we encourage the community to “drift together” on this topic.
I just explored the FKC, seems like a great start, isn't there more information?

Thank you! We’re doing our best! The Fraud Kill Chain itself has more Fraud MO TTP information, which isn’t yet shown on this website. We hope to add it soon. Also, we’re aiming to add mitigation mappings to the FKC. In the mean time, we have a white paper for download for more background information on the Fraud Kill Chain.

Who is behind this website?

On April 28, 2025, at RSA in San Francisco, Senan Moloney and Eward Driehuis spoke about using the FKC to analyse relatively recent digital wallet attacks. This website accompanies that initiative.

Senan and Eward work at Barclays and ThreatFabric, respectively.

Would you like to learn more?

Contact us