Fraud-related risks are rising sharply

The Top Risk Review H2 2025 shows that overall risk rankings have remained reasonably consistent since the H1 review in May this year; however, fraud-related risks are rising sharply. External Fraud has moved from sixth position into the top five risks, while Internal Fraud has seen a significant increase in materiality, making it one of the fastest growing risks. The review attributes the rise in fraud exposure to socioeconomic pressures, continued geopolitical tensions and increasingly sophisticated fraud methods enabled and accelerated by AI. In the face of these challenges, employees are also becoming more vulnerable to external fraudsters who are actively seeking to recruit internal threat actors, making the boundary between Internal Fraud and External Fraud increasingly blurred.

[....]