Interpol flags sharp rise in cybercrime across Asia

INTERPOL has published a cyberthreat assessment showing a sharp rise in cybercrime across Asia and the South Pacific. Cybercrime now accounts for more than 30 per cent of all recorded crime in over half of the countries surveyed.

The assessment covers January 2024 to March 2025 and draws on information from 18 member countries in the region, as well as private sector data and operational case studies. It identifies phishing as the most widespread and financially damaging form of cybercrime, with 33 per cent of countries reporting more than 10,000 cases.

Ransomware also featured heavily. The region recorded more than 135,000 ransomware-related attacks in 2024, affecting industries including real estate, manufacturing and financial services.

Distributed denial of service attacks rose even faster, increasing 92 per cent in 2024 from the previous year. System intrusions accounted for about 80 per cent of all data breaches, while malware and ransomware were present in 83 per cent and 51 per cent of those cases, respectively.

The assessment links the rise in attacks to broader digital adoption across the region, including growth in internet access, mobile banking, cloud computing and digital financial services. It also points to increasingly organised criminal groups using artificial intelligence tools, ransomware subscription models and social engineering tactics at scale.

One of the clearest signs of that shift came from monitoring online criminal spaces. Discussions about deepfakes on cybercriminal forums and Telegram channels used by Southeast Asian threat actors rose 600 per cent between February and June 2024.

Phishing remained a major concern for companies and consumers. The report found that 5.5 out of every 1,000 people in the region clicked on phishing links each month, about twice the global average, with cloud applications emerging as the main targets.

Private sector data in the assessment added to the scale of the threat. Figures provided by TrendAI showed that more than 6.5 billion cyber threats were detected and mitigated across Asia and the South Pacific between January and December 2024.

Enforcement gaps

Law enforcement agencies across the region continue to face technical and operational constraints. The assessment highlights gaps in specialist forensic tools, limited access to cybercrime training and a lack of technical capacity in some jurisdictions.

Those weaknesses are not evenly spread. While some countries have developed stronger cybersecurity frameworks and institutional structures, developing countries and small island states often face tighter resource constraints, leaving them more exposed to criminal exploitation.

In some places, fragmented enforcement structures and weaker legislation add to the challenge. Jurisdictions with limited technical resources and less mature legal frameworks remain particularly vulnerable.

Even so, many police and government agencies have begun strengthening their responses. Most of the countries surveyed said they had launched public awareness campaigns and increased training for law enforcement personnel, while 66.7 per cent reported adopting artificial intelligence tools for predictive analysis, digital forensics and threat detection.

Some countries are also investing in digital forensics infrastructure, specialist units and updated cybercrime laws. The assessment argues that stronger cloud security, better user education, improved cyber incident response and faster intelligence sharing will be needed to tackle threats that cross borders quickly.

Regional warning

Neal Jetton, Cybercrime Director at INTERPOL, described a changing threat landscape in the region.

"The findings in this report highlight a rapidly evolving cyber threat landscape across Asia and the South Pacific, where cybercriminals are leveraging artificial intelligence, ransomware-as-a-service models and sophisticated social engineering techniques on an industrial scale. As digital adoption accelerates across the region, strengthening operational cooperation, information sharing and cyber resilience remains essential to protecting communities and critical infrastructure," Jetton said.

The assessment was prepared through the Asia and South Pacific Joint Operations against Cybercrime project, funded by the United Kingdom's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. It is part of a broader set of regional cyberthreat studies produced by INTERPOL.

The findings underscore how cybercrime has moved beyond a specialist policing issue to become a mainstream public safety and economic risk across the region. Phishing, ransomware, data breaches and AI-enabled deception are now embedded in daily criminal activity. More than half of the countries surveyed reported that cybercrime accounts for 30 per cent of all crimes recorded nationally.