Asia reports sharp rise in cybercrimes and scams: Interpol

[SINGAPORE] Illegal cyber activities accounted for around a third of all crimes recorded in some Asian countries, with scams being the most widespread and financially damaging, a new Interpol report shows.

The global policing agency’s latest cyberthreat assessment cited the increasing dominance of online crimes compared to traditional illicit activity.

It described the activities as “persistent, large-scale challenges affecting multiple jurisdictions”, which were linked to the rapid adoption of digital infrastructure.

Of the 18 Interpol member states in Asia and South Pacific that responded to a survey, more than half reported that cybercrime made up 30 per cent of all crimes recorded nationally.

Around a third reported more than 10,000 cases of online scams using techniques such as phishing. Interpol did not publicly list the countries that responded to their survey, which was carried out between January 2024 and March 2025.

Neal Jetton, who oversees the Cybercrime Directorate at Interpol in Singapore, said: the report’s findings “highlight a rapidly evolving cyberthreat landscape across Asia and the South Pacific”.

Cybercriminals in the region are “leveraging artificial intelligence, ransomware-as-a-service models and sophisticated social engineering techniques on an industrial scale”, he added.

The report comes as governments across Asia grapple with an explosion in online fraud, fuelled by sprawling scam networks that monitoring groups say increasingly operate across borders and generate tens of billions of dollars a year.

Once concentrated in parts of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, such operations have expanded and adapted in response to law enforcement pressure, creating new challenges for authorities trying to disrupt them.

SEE ALSO

Cambodia scam centres increase despite crackdown: report

Sri Lanka emerging as a new base for Asia’s scam networks after crackdown in Cambodia

Vietnam police bust group planning large-scale online scam centre

Interpol cited the expansion of scam call centres, saying they form part of a “global underground economy”, where groups take advantage of lax enforcement and legal ambiguity, operating with little oversight.

Scam tracking groups have warned that the traditional large scam compounds are splintering into smaller, more nimble operations as far afield as Africa, the South Pacific and parts of Europe and Latin America, helped also by the availability of AI tools.

Authorities in Sri Lanka, for example, recently carried out raids on suspected scam centres there. 

“Even mature economies, often thought to have stronger cyberdefences, are increasingly being targeted due to exploitable regulatory gaps and higher potential financial gain,” Interpol said in the report.

“AI is also transforming the landscape of digital fraud, driving the emergence of more elaborate and deceptive schemes,” it added.

“Advanced scams increasingly involve AI-generated content such as manipulated audio, visuals, messages and automated interactions that simulate legitimate communication across multiple platforms.”

Law enforcement agencies across the region face significant operational and technical challenges in combating cybercrime, noted Interpol.

The survey found gaps in specialised forensic tools, limited access to targeted cybercrime training and insufficient technical capacity. Many developing countries and small island states face significant resource and capacity constraints.

The report’s other findings include:

• The Asia and South Pacific region recorded more than 135,000 ransomware-related attacks in 2024, impacting real estate, manufacturing and financial services.
• Phishing remained prevalent, with 5.5 out of every 1,000 individuals in the region clicking on phishing links monthly. Cloud applications were the primary targets.
• Discussions about deepfakes, which are used to perpetuate impersonation scams, rose 600 per cent on cybercriminal forums and Telegram channels popular among South-east Asian gangs between February and June 2024. 
• Distributed denial-of-service attacks rose 92 per cent in 2024 with government websites as primary targets, alongside financial institutions. System intrusions accounted for around 80 per cent of all data breaches in 2024, with malware present in 83 per cent of cases and ransomware in 51 per cent.

The report showed that identity-based attacks are rising, with traditional security measures such as two-factor authentication “becoming inadequate due to password reuse, compromised credentials and vulnerabilities in single sign-on systems”.

A better option is adaptive verification, which authenticates users in real time based on their location, behavior and device integrity, Interpol said. BLOOMBERG