In today’s digital-first financial world, trust is everything—and it’s constantly under attack. That’s why SoFi, one of the world’s top mobile banks, is investing in cutting-edge tools to detect and eliminate phishing, fraud, and brand impersonation in real time.
In a recent webinar, Megan Capdeville, Intelligence Analyst at SoFi, joined Bolster AI CEO Rod Schultz to walk through how SoFi uses Bolster’s web monitoring platform as part of a layered defense strategy. The session covered real-world phishing campaigns, cross-team collaboration, and how SoFi is proactively protecting customer trust at scale.
Brand Popularity Equals Vulnerability
As Rod explained early in the session, the bigger your brand, the more attractive a target you become. “The more popular you are, the more people want to imitate you,” he said. At SoFi, brand abuse isn’t hypothetical—it’s a growing challenge that mirrors the company’s rise as a leading digital financial platform. SoFi’s success, especially as a mobile-first institution with a large customer base, has made it a frequent target for brand impersonation, phishing scams, and fraudulent domains.
Detection and Takedown—Fast
Megan described a phishing campaign that targeted SoFi’s Hong Kong office using a convincing domain—not a typo-squat, just a plausible-sounding URL that wasn’t owned by SoFi. Without Bolster’s alerting, she said, “It would have taken much more time and effort to solve,” especially since it was hosted in a foreign country using a legitimate provider. Instead, Bolster’s platform flagged it, and the takedown happened within 24 hours—an unusually fast turnaround for an international case. That speed helped protect not only SoFi’s potential customers, but the trust that underpins their brand.
From Marketing to Threat Intel
SoFi’s experience reflects a broader trend in the industry: brand protection responsibilities are shifting from marketing teams to security and threat intelligence professionals. Megan noted that while she still collaborates with SoFi’s marketing team, “We routinely send them Bolster intelligence, and they love it. It helps them with their processes, and we work together to do takedowns.” This cross-functional collaboration is increasingly important as brand abuse becomes more complex, frequent, and global.
AI-Powered Monitoring Saves Time—and Reduces Risk
Bolster’s platform isn’t just fast—it’s efficient. Megan shared that Bolster has reduced SoFi’s workload by about 20%, freeing up her team to focus on deeper analysis. “That’s 20% of your life you don’t get back otherwise,” she joked. She also praised the intuitive UI and scale of detections, noting that a single campaign they worked on surfaced 62 unique attack surfaces. For a team inundated with phishing attempts, having clean, actionable data makes all the difference.
Digital Trust is Earned Through Speed and Precision
For SoFi, the stakes go beyond risk management—they’re about preserving digital trust. “Trust is the most important thing for banks in my opinion,” Megan said. “When a phishing site fools someone, that trust is broken immediately.” Bolster helps SoFi respond to threats fast enough to prevent that damage. Even when familiar scams resurface months later—like a recent black-and-gold phishing theme targeting crypto investors—Megan’s team can re-engage with Bolster, activate pre-established workflows, and quickly mitigate risk.
Rod emphasized that the customer experience can collapse if trust is compromised. “Banks can hypothetically fail from a cyberattack,” he said, “and once you destroy that trust, customers are very inclined to leave your brand.”
Final Thoughts
SoFi’s story shows that defending a modern financial brand requires automation, intelligence, and seamless collaboration. Megan offered four recommendations for other finserv teams: prioritize clean, structured data to reduce analysis fatigue; start small with high-priority use cases; engage cross-functional teams early; and embrace AI—but validate it. “We can’t predict the future of AI,” she said, “but we can use what we have now—and we can get help from excellent vendors like Bolster who help us do the heavy lifting.”
Looking to reduce your brand’s shadow attack surface? SoFi’s story is proof that speed, visibility, and trust aren’t just goals—they’re achievable.
Want to learn more about how Bolster supports financial services teams? Reach out to us or watch the full session on demand.
