Interview: Zumigo on Fraud Mitigation and Prevention Strategies for Businesses

July 2026

Telecoms & Connectivity

Ardit Ballhysa

Senior Research Analyst

Following Zumigo's win Gold award win for Best Real-time Fraud Intelligence Sharing Solution at Juniper Research’s Future Digital Awards, we sat down with Chirag Bakshi, Founder and CEO at Zumigo, to discuss the emerging forms of fraud and anti-fraud strategies to keep businesses safe.   How does Zumigo’s Assure Insights address common weaknesses in enterprises anti-fraud strategies?

Many anti-fraud strategies use single source signals (ie, only name and address match), but because hackers use different aspects of an identity to create a fake identity, verifying one single piece of information is not enough. 

Zumigo Assure Insights layers different real-time risk signals across different aspects of an identity for a holistic view of the level of trust, including the following:

• Mobile number and account information, and the activity associated with the number
• Device fingerprinting and biometrics
• Personally Identifiable Information (PII) match and verification
• Email validity and verification
• Payment and banking
• Government-issued documents
• Network activity
• IP-Based geolocation

How is Zumigo using AI and machine learning to enable enterprises to fight fraud?

Zumigo leverages advanced AI and machine learning to provide enterprises with a multi-layered defence against increasingly sophisticated fraud rings. By analysing real-time traffic patterns relating to the information of a digital identity, Zumigo identifies anomalies associated with phone activities, including SIM swaps, porting, used by bots, etc. With this information, organisations can pre-emptively detect and take additional steps to ensure the coordinated attacks are neutralised, including step-up or repeat authentications. The core pillars of Zumigo’s AI strategy are:

1. Pattern Analysis for Anomaly Detection: Zumigo monitors vast streams of behavioural data to spot the ‘fingerprints’ of fraud rings. This goes beyond identifying individual bad actors to uncovering large-scale, automated movements.
2. Identity Graph Technology: Zumigo’s proprietary identity graph links disparate PII elements. By connecting these seemingly unrelated signals, Zumigo creates a holistic view of a consumer’s digital identity to expose fraudulent connections.
3. Agentic AI for Scalable Decisioning: Looking toward the future, Zumigo is investing in Agentic AI to allow enterprises to scale their decision-making processes; responding to threats at machine speed without the bottlenecks of manual review. Agents can be tasked with detecting a particular kind of threat and carry out additional tasks to neutralise them.

What are some key misconceptions that enterprises have about using cellular networks to reduce fraud?

Here are some common misconceptions:

1. Invasion of privacy:  Consumers assume the mobile network operators are sharing their mobile number and account information with Zumigo and the businesses that are requesting the verification. In fact, Zumigo does not see, keep or share the data. When Zumigo gets a request to verify, we send the type of info requested to the MNO and get back a match/no-match indicator, which is then aggregated into one risk score and passed back to the business.
2. For businesses that think that integrating with MNOs for risk signals and deploying verification workflows is too difficult and complicated, Zumigo has already completed that step. We integrate with major MNOs around the world, and offer a low-code/no-code platform to build the verification workflows leveraging these mobile identity risk signals. The platform reduces the time it takes to deploy verification workflows from weeks to hours.

Can you share a real-world example of how Zumigo’s Assure Insights has enabled a client to prevent fraud?

An online payment company operates in over 200 markets, and has almost 500 million active account users. Controlling for fraud is an ongoing business goal.

To onboard new users, either via their desktop or mobile web browser, or via mobile native app, Zumigo performs the following checks on the mobile number entered:

• Whether the number has recently been ported or whether call forwarding is enabled;
• Whether the account is active or inactive
• Which mobile network operator manages the number
• Whether the name and address submitted matched the record on file
• Validate the email entered
• Whether there has been recent change to the SIM and IMEI
• Whether the phone number has been deactivated

For existing users who are adding an additional mobile phone number to their account, Zumigo validates that the name and address associated with the phone number matches the name and address of the users on the account.

Additionally, Zumigo assesses the validity of the email address that was entered as contact detail or used to sign up for a new account before the company sends out an email verification link.

The result is, overall risk of fraud is reduced, and the company is more confident when onboarding new consumers.

What are some emerging forms of fraud enterprises need to be aware of?

Bot-driven attacks: These attacks leverage scale and speed to exploit password reuse, weak passwords, and credentials from the dark web. They are fast because they are scripted to run millions of attacks at once. Additionally, they are hard to detect because they mimic human-like typing and use AI to overcome challenges. By running full versions of common browsers in the background, they appear indistinguishable from real user sessions.

Synthetic identities: Attackers blend real information like a legitimate Social Security number with fake information like a fabricated name and address. This makes the identity look perfectly valid to automated systems that only check one aspect of the identity.

How do you expect Zumigo’s Assure Insights to evolve to fight fraud in the future?

Our future strategy follows a two-pronged approach: continuously expanding the breadth and quality of our identity signals, while simultaneously transforming that data into rapid, actionable decisions. We are investing in connecting a broader identity surface; connecting more signals across diverse touchpoints to map the hidden relationships used by both coordinated fraud rings and individual bad actors.

What sets Zumigo apart is our shift from delivering raw data to providing intelligence-rich insights that explain the ‘why’ behind a risk. By integrating these signals into packaged solution flows, we reduce the complexity of preventing identity fraud, and dramatically shorten the time to decision for enterprises. This evolution moves identity protection away from a static ‘gate’ toward a continuous, adaptive defence that stays ahead of an ever-changing threat landscape.

Zumigo is a digital identity and fraud intelligence company that partners with 800+ global mobile network operators, data analytics providers, and financial institutions to verify real users and catch fraudulent ones using signals that traditional data sources cannot replicate. From new account origination and KYC through authentication, transactions, and continuous account monitoring, Zumigo protects every touchpoint in the customer lifecycle.

Banks, fintechs, e-commerce platforms, gig economy networks, and enterprise HR teams rely on Zumigo to stop new account fraud, account takeover, and organized fraud rings, without adding friction for legitimate customers.

To learn more about Zumigo and their anti-fraud solutions, visit https://zumigo.com/