External Fraud

Data Deep Dive - February 2026

This Data Deep Dive provides an overview of publicly reported operational risk loss events across the last 5 years that are associated with external fraud. 

ORX News subscribers can log in to read this Data Deep Dive focused on external fraud. This report provides an analysis of a risk type, theme, or topic using event data recorded by ORX News between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2025.

 ORX News subscribers can use it for:

Thematic analysis

Use the report to gain insight into the common causes, outcomes, actions, trends, and sub-themes associated with a risk type or theme.

Risk awareness

Share the report across the organisation to increase risk awareness and form a basis of understanding among the team.

Control comparison

Use the report to compare with your existing controls and identify any gaps during risk management workshops.

Support discussions with real data

Use the report to substantiate risk discussions with evidence of actual materialised losses.

This Data Deep Dive explores operational risk loss events involving external fraud using the structure of the bow tie model. It explores commonalities between fraud events by analysing internal and external causes, remedial measures, financial and non-financial impacts, and other sub-themes found in the dataset.

What's in the Data Deep Dive?

The report is split into two sections. The first provides an overview of the topic, including:

• Geographic breakdown
• Fraud typologies
• Distribution, ranges, and comparison of loss amounts
• Cumulative frequency and loss distribution by risk type

The second section is an in-depth analysis, covering:

• Internal and external causes
• Financial and non-financial impacts
• Remedial measures
• Focus on key themes: cyber (phishing and identity theft), credit (collateral issues and falsified documents) and AI