InfoSec People Profile: Alloy’s Sara Seguin

Principal Advisor, Fraud and Identity Risk

By Roy Urrico

Finopotamus presents InfoSec People Profiles, a series spotlighting individuals working in information security (infosec), cybersecurity and/or information governance to protect data and transactions at credit unions, other financial institutions, and fintechs serving the financial services industry.

Sara Seguin, principal advisor, fraud and identity risk at Alloy.

Financial institutions and fintechs face an ongoing and increasingly sophisticated fraud threat, according to Sara Seguin, principal advisor, fraud and identity risk at New York City-based Alloy, which delivers identity risk solutions to organizations that offer financial products.

“Seventy-one percent of financial organizations confirmed that most of their fraud attempts are due to organized crime rings,” Seguin told Finopotamus. “The industry has known for a while crime rings are more rampant. They are causing most of the fraud.”

The Infosec Path

Seguin admits her information security journey has followed what she describes as a “funny path.”

She grew up in Pittsburgh and went to “a small university north of Pittsburgh called Slippery Rock University for criminal justice. Then I went back to school for my master's in criminal justice with a focus in legal studies at PennWest California University (in Pennsylvania).”

Following her graduation from Slippery Rock (in 2005) she participated in an internship with the Secret Service at the Pittsburgh field office. “Because I thought I wanted to go into one of the federal agencies. I realized I did not after doing that internship.”

Instead, Seguin started her banking career at Citizens Bank, where she worked for two-years. “When a role came open with Citizens Bank (working with deposit fraud and kite investigations), that is how I started my fraud career.”

“I've held several different roles throughout the years,” said Seguin. In 2008, she began a stretch with KeyBank in various fraud strategy and detection positions. “I had over 17 years in banking under that infosec umbrella, whether it was creating a fraud operations team or a fraud command center. It was leading fraud strategy for the enterprise as well as the business analytics team, where we worked hand in hand with our cyber team.”

Seguin admits, “It's been quite the path, but as soon as I came out of the branch and went into the back office in fraud, that's where really I’ve spent my whole career before coming to Alloy.”

Taking on an Advisory Role

Seguin became Alloy’s principal advisor on fraud and identity risk in 2023. “I'm helping the company not only as a go-to for our internal employees, but also for our clients as well.” This consists of helping Alloy from a marketing perspective as well as writing educational or content pieces to share with clients. The focus is on “what we're seeing on the latest threats trends with the goal to share information with them so they can be proactive in their strategies and to detect things in advance.”

Internally she also helps Alloy colleagues understand the financial institution (FI) lingo. “Whether it's the acronyms, or just the language of the banking industry,” said Seguin. “Anywhere I can help to fill that gap, what (financial institutions) mean and the challenges they face. Really helping folks to understand if there is a new regulation and whether they are under an exam, hear what they are facing and what it means. It really helps as a company because we have an understanding of what they are going through.”

Alloy Operations Related to Cybersecurity

“I would not necessarily say that Alloy is a cybersecurity provider. However, what Alloy does address is the human element of security through identity risk management. When you think about Alloy, it is really an identity-and-fraud prevention platform,” Seguin told Finopotamus.

Alloy provides financial institutions and fintechs with the capability to manage their clients’ identity risk throughout the customer life cycle, said Seguin. “Not only from onboarding, but as they continue to perform transactions, log into online banking, et cetera. Right now, we have over 600 client organizations and that is globally.”

Seguin explained one of Alloy’s primary goals is to help clients “move from point solutions, where there is one solution provider helping solve this whole entire fraud problem, to really building an orchestration system for them.” She explained Alloy wants to offer a lot of flexibility so clients can pull levers when needed, whether it is due to changing regulations or a new fraud threat on the horizon. “That really gives them multiple sources to help them through that.”

Providing that holistic view of the client is a key benefit to protection, Seguin maintained. “Your bank should know you from the time you enter your information into an application to open an account and all through your lifecycle. They have a lot of data to be able to understand you, how you transact, how you interact, what that behavior looks like. We can help to build that picture for financial institutions.”

Real-Time Payments Causing Sleepless Nights

Asked what threats keep her up at night, Seguin told Finopotamus with “some of the things that are constantly top of mind are real-time payments.” She described how the banking industry wants to provide more opportunities for faster payments. Faster payments could produce faster fraud because “fraudsters also look for vulnerabilities.”

One of those weaknesses, suggested Seguin, could result in real-time payments account takeovers. She suggested financial institutions may want to accelerate implementation of tools to better prevent fraud that occurs via peer-to-peer (P2P) payments platforms as well as payments rails like RTP (Real Time Payments) and FedNow.

Financial institutions also face the challenge of modernizing outdated technology, pointed out Seguin. “Not only is the industry trying to rapidly evolve, but the fraudsters are as well. It is just trying to stay ahead of the fraudsters and what is their next scheme. That’s something that is always top of mind.”

Top Cybersecurity Dangers to Credit Unions and Other Financial Institutions

Seguin referred to the recently released Alloy 2025 State of Fraud Report, which she had a hand in developing, that continued to raise the alarm about the growing sophistication of financial threats. The most common fraud channel reported, according to the Alloy Fraud Report is through digital channels, Seguin noted.

However, from an account takeover fraud perspective, “Our data showed that credit unions (and mid-market banks) experienced more fraud through the contact centers than through their mobile banking apps,” she said. Seguin suggested this can reveal that credit unions are targeted or lack protection or services to members through the contact center. “But it can also indicate there's an opportunity to strengthen those authentication protocols across channels.”

Seguin noted historically many financial institutions focus on digital banking. “Then they start to say, ‘Okay, if we lock down digital now, maybe we'll look at the branch.’ The fraud shifts according to where there is a vulnerability. Ensure that investments are made across all channels, specifically from a credit union perspective as it relates to account takeover.”

She shared another statistic with Finopotamus that showed that 75% of financial organizations reported more than 25% of new account applications required manual review. “Perhaps they do not have the technology to automate multiple risk screenings. That can be really challenging for a financial institution from a back-office perspective.”

What that means, according to Seguin, is that FIs are taking those applications and a human is reviewing them to make a decision on whether they should open that account or not. “I do think that is a danger from a credit union perspective because it can create some inefficiencies for them,” she noted.

“Alloy is trying to help from an industry perspective,” said Seguin. “Yes, there is a solution, but it is also how can we help the broader industry, and help them with efficiency and automation and growth. So, in every speaking opportunity, it also becomes, how can we help others in the room and how can we let them know what we are seeing because it might stop a fraud attack at their institution as well?”