Southeast Asian countries lose $23.6 billion due to fraud

The current state of fraud, especially through digital channels, has created a major crisis for Southeast Asian countries in 2025 when nearly two-thirds of adults in the region have been scammed, with total losses reaching US$23.6 billion.

People need to protect themselves from a variety of online scams.

The newly released State of Southeast Asia 2025 report, conducted by the Global Anti-Fraud Alliance (GASA) in collaboration with ScamAdviser and BioCatch, shows that digital fraud has reached “crisis” levels.

The financial impact of fraud is huge, with total losses of $23.6 billion, with each victim losing an average of $660, according to the report. Singapore and Malaysia were the hardest hit, with losses per person exceeding $2,100 and $1,000, respectively.

The report also highlights the increasing speed of online fraud, the level of sophistication and the impact of mental crisis on victims of fraud, especially in Vietnam and Malaysia. The majority of victims were scammed through money transfers (48%), through e-wallets (36%) and notably, 18% of victims did not report the scam to the authorities or tell their relatives (in Thailand, 25% and in Malaysia, 23% of victims chose to remain silent after being scammed).

Mr. Ngo Tran Vu, Director of NTS Security Company, said: “The channels that are most trusted and used by people are the places that scam gangs exploit the most. For the general public, it is the smartphone, revolving around phone calls, SMS messages or messaging applications such as Facebook Messenger, Zalo, and Telegram. For office workers, it is also through the website channel on the computer.”

Citing the report, Mr. Vu said that although 78% of adults generally feel confident in detecting scams, nearly two-thirds are still victims or targets of scams. This shows the need for stronger protection measures and coordinated actions.

“Most adult users in Vietnam today have installed online banking applications or e-wallets for cashless payments, or cryptocurrency investors. However, most people use these smartphones to chat online via messaging applications or surf the web without any protection.”

Although authorities regularly warn of new methods of fraud gangs, especially when users' data information is exposed more, it is easier for scammers to exploit trust and lack of knowledge when using digital devices. But convincing words with accurate information along with calls with simulated voices and video images by AI lure victims into the trap. When clicking on the link to download fake applications, they will get the bank or e-wallet authentication code.

According to a statistical report for the first half of 2025 from Kaspersky Security Company, Kaspersky's Android phone security application blocked 2 million clicks on phishing links by users through the Notification Protection function. This function blocks phishing links as soon as users receive a notification of a new message. (Users can download Kaspersky Antivirus & VPN for free from the Samsung Galaxy, Huawei or Xiaomi app stores).

A message warning with a phishing link when a user receives a notification on their phone

“Installing a layer of defense is important, but users of digital devices, whether computers or smartphones, need to remember to follow the news and update safety knowledge in the online environment. Combining these activities can help to be safer against the current widespread fraud situation,” Mr. Ngo Tran Vu shared.

A report published on September 17 by Netcraft on the online fraud service activities of the Lighthouse & Lucid gang shows that up to 17,500 fake domains of 316 brands in 74 countries were included in the campaign in 2025. One of the goals is to trick users into downloading fake applications to infiltrate and steal information such as impersonating popular cryptocurrency wallet applications such as Trust, MetaMask, OKX, Coinbase or PancakeSwap, stealing login codes to take over assets in the wallet.

BINH LAM

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/cac-quoc-gia-dong-nam-a-thiet-hai-236-ty-usd-vi-lua-dao-post815790.html