Akamai Research: More Than One in Three Login Attempts in APAC Flagged as High or Critical Risk
Bengaluru – More than one in three login attempts observed by Akamai across Asia Pacific (APAC) were flagged as high or critical risk (36.4%), exceeding the global average of 26.6%, according to new research from Akamai. The region recorded the second-highest proportion globally, behind Latin America (37.8%), and ahead of North America (23.6%) and EMEA (23.7%), underscoring the need for stronger identity protection as cybercriminals increasingly target the entry points businesses rely on every day.
Published in Akamai’s latest State of the Internet (SOTI) Security report, AI-Driven Digital Deception: The Fraud and Abuse Report 2026, the findings highlight how cybercriminals are exploiting the login stage as a key entry point for account abuse. Globally, account verification requests accounted for 40% of high or critical risk login activity, potentially indicating attempts to validate accounts before launching credential stuffing attacks. These risk classifications indicate potentially malicious activity, rather than confirmed successful attacks.
The report also reveals how artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are enabling more sophisticated fraud tactics to outpace traditional perimeter defenses, leading to a structural shift in cybercrime.
● Scams surpasses phishing: Global online scam detections doubled year-over-year from 3.2 million to 6.4 million, overtaking traditional phishing for the first time in Q1 2026 as attackers prioritize immediate financial fraud over long-term credential theft.
● Attack lifespan reduced in half: The average operational window of phishing campaigns dropped from 48.3 days in Q4 2025 to just 22 days in Q2 2026, severely compressing the time security teams have to detect and neutralize threats.
Financial Services Emerge as APAC’s Most Targeted Industry
Financial services emerged as a key target in APAC, with banking (6.4%) and fintech (6.1%) together accounting for 12.5% of observed attack activity. Malware, advanced persistent threats, ransomware and botnets were among the primary threats observed across the region.
Akamai’s threat intelligence underscores how modern attackers pair brute-force automation with targeted stealth. In July 2026, researchers tracked simultaneous attacks against a major APAC financial institution that deployed dual tactics:
● Reconnaissance at scale: An automated barrage of 42,000 requests over seven days designed to mass-validate credential databases for resale or subsequent takeover.
● Low-and-Slow account creation: A precision attempt to create just 164 requests engineered to bypass threshold-based rate limits and establish synthetic identities or money-muling accounts.
Cybercriminals are also tailoring scams to local behaviors. In Southeast Asia, researchers analyzed 2,157 URLs linked to campaigns that used travel-related searches to redirect users to regional gambling platforms. These campaigns targeted cryptocurrency investors, financial institutions, consumer brands, and commerce businesses for credential theft, payment fraud, and account takeover.
Reuben Koh, Director of Security Technology and Strategy, APJ at Akamai, said: “Fraudsters are getting better at hiding in plain sight. What looks like a routine login, a new account or a small payment could be part of a larger attack, with AI and automation making these schemes easier to scale and blend in. The challenge for businesses is that suspicious activity does not always look suspicious in isolation. Organizations need to connect the dots across the entire customer journey to identify fraudulent intent early, while ensuring that legitimate customers can continue to transact seamlessly.”
Strengthening Defenses Against Digital Fraud
To combat evolving fraud tactics, Akamai recommends that organizations move beyond traditional, reactive defenses and adopt intent-based behavioral detection across the entire account lifecycle, from registration and authentication to payments.
Stronger bot management can help organizations identify automated account creation, credential stuffing and fraudulent transactions, including low-volume attacks designed to evade detection. Organizations should also look beyond individual phishing websites to identify shared infrastructure and behavioral patterns that may reveal coordinated campaigns.
Closer collaboration between cybersecurity, fraud prevention and business teams is equally critical. By connecting threat intelligence across different stages of the customer journey, organizations can detect emerging risks earlier, reduce potential financial losses and protect customer trust without compromising the experience of legitimate users.
Now in their 12th year, Akamai’s State of the Internet security reports draw on attack data observed across Akamai’s cybersecurity protective infrastructure, which handles a significant portion of global web traffic.
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