Brazil’s Banks Shift to Behavior-Based Defenses as Fraud Grows

Overview

• Banks are deploying risk-based controls that monitor user behavior in real time and trigger extra authentication when patterns look suspicious, a tactical pivot reported across financial institutions on June 30.
• The central bank’s MED 2.0 recovery rules and faster account-blocking tools have expanded chances to freeze and trace diverted Pix transfers but their success still hinges on victims reporting fraud quickly.
• Small and medium businesses carry a disproportionate share of attacks with studies showing roughly 43–62% of phishing and other attempts target PMEs and many lack the controls to survive an incident.
• Criminal groups have professionalized into services that sell malware and fraud toolkits—families such as Grandoreiro and Prilex are used in more than 90 countries—and police operations in 2024 targeted these export networks.
• The cyber-insurance market has tightened underwriting by requiring MFA, encrypted backups, tested incident plans and network segmentation, and banks plan large tech spending to limit losses while consumer restitution rates remain low.