Why Mastercard Built Threat Intelligence
Did you know that 60 percent of global fraud leaders report learning about cyber breaches only after fraud losses begin?
That’s what Mastercard discovered when it surveyed 100 global fraud and risk leaders, which is why the company created a new solution that’s designed to prevent fraud before it starts.
What Mastercard Threat Intelligence Is
Mastercard Threat Intelligence, the company’s first threat intelligence offering, combines Mastercard’s global network visibility with curated cyber threat intelligence from Recorded Future’s platform for a proactive approach to fraud defense. The solution connects cyber signals with fraud workflows to help fraud teams act early and reduce losses. The new solution was released less than a year after Mastercard’s acquisition of Recorded Future, a cybersecurity and threat intelligence company, which was finalized in early 2025.
Global Head of Security Solutions, Johan Gerber, unveiled Mastercard’s new solution at Money 20/20, an annual conference that brings together leaders from banks, startups, and elsewhere to showcase the industry’s latest fintech innovations. During the presentation, he highlighted cybersecurity innovation as a business imperative and how Mastercard’s solution enables fraud and security teams to work together seamlessly to prevent fraud.
Mastercard Threat Intelligence puts Mastercard in an even better position to address cybersecurity threats and financial crime, which are expected to increase in the increasingly digitized payments landscape.
Read on to see what Gerber had to say about Mastercard Threat Intelligence, including its key features and potential impact on the financial services industry’s wider cybersecurity initiatives.
Early Impact: What Market Testing Revealed
Before it was even launched, Mastercard Threat Intelligence made a major impact on Mastercard’s partners. During market testing, Mastercard’s ecosystem partners were able to identify and remove malicious domains responsible for stealing payment card data that had impacted nearly 9,500 e-commerce sites and were linked to an estimated $120 million U.S. dollars in fraud.
“As the lines between cybercrime and financial crime continue to blur, innovation is an imperative. Mastercard Threat Intelligence provides customers with actionable, real-time, and targeted risk insights to disrupt fraudulent transactions, inform strategic defense, and ultimately enable a more proactive approach.”
What Mastercard Threat Intelligence Does
- Card testing detection: Real-time alerts and proactive declines of fraudulent test transactions reduce downstream fraud and safeguard cardholders.
- Digital skimming intelligence: Quantitative data helps customers assess skimmer impacts and disrupt card-related malware, tapping into the company’s ongoing work with industry partners to protect the payment ecosystem.
- Merchant threat intelligence: Targeted payment fraud data and cyber threat signals strengthen merchant risk investigations and enable faster incident response.
- Payment ecosystem threat intelligence: Weekly reports detail emerging threats and vulnerabilities across the broader payments landscape.
- Payment intelligence reports: Actionable case studies and fraud trend analysis informs strategy and strengthens defenses.
Why Threat Intelligence Matters in Financial Services
Tracy (Kitten) Goldberg, director of cybersecurity at Javelin Strategy & Research, on how effective cybersecurity depends on threat intelligence that spans sectors and regions:
“Vendors with broad transactional data and analytics will play a key role in improving information-sharing among financial services, merchants and across the industry. New doors are opening for advanced threat intel, facilitated through successful cyber fusion that incorporates a myriad of tools across identity verification, fraud detection, and indicators of compromise. Feeding threat intel across disparate teams and industries in meaningful and useful ways will help fraud and cybersecurity teams more readily identify trends, placing them in positions to move from reactive response to proactive mitigation.”
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Mastercard Threat Intelligence?
Mastercard Threat Intelligence is Mastercard’s first threat intelligence offering, combining the company’s global network visibility with curated cyber threat intelligence from Recorded Future. It connects cyber signals with fraud workflows to help fraud teams act earlier and reduce losses.
Why did Mastercard launch a threat intelligence product?
Mastercard found that 60 percent of global fraud leaders learn about cyber breaches only after fraud losses begin. The product was built to prevent fraud before it starts by enabling earlier detection and closer collaboration between fraud and security teams.
What makes Mastercard Threat Intelligence different from other tools?
The solution combines Mastercard’s fraud insights and global network data with external cyber threat intelligence, linking cybersecurity signals directly to fraud operations. It provides actionable, real-time and targeted risk insights while integrating features like card testing detection, digital skimming intelligence and merchant threat intelligence.
What does Mastercard Threat Intelligence do in practice?
It delivers real-time alerts for fraudulent test transactions, provides intelligence on digital skimming and merchant risk, publishes weekly reports on emerging payment ecosystem threats and offers case studies and fraud trend analysis to inform strategy and strengthen defenses.
