Akamai report finds online scams doubled and overtook phishing

Detections of online scams doubled between July 2025 and June 2026, according to Akamai’s latest State of the Internet (SOTI) report, which draws on data from partner Bolster AI. The study notes that scam activity overtook phishing for the first time, recording around 6.4 million online scams in April–June 2026 versus 3.2 million in July–September 2025. The category includes fake stores, investment scams, tech-support schemes and payment fraud.

Akamai’s Patrick Sullivan, CTO for security strategy, said that “the fight against fraud is no longer just an isolated financial function; it is a critical, cross-functional cybersecurity imperative,” adding that threat actors are exploiting AI-generated business logic abuse and zero-click data exfiltration as autonomous agents and synthetic identities redefine customer interactions.

The report also indicates phishing detections rose by 61%, driven by reusable kits, industrialised infrastructure and AI; while the lifespan of a phishing attack reportedly shortened from 48 days in Q4 2025 to 22 days in Q2 2026, thanks to AI-enabled dynamic templates, multilingual lures and evasion techniques. Security teams, conversely, are leveraging AI to speed investigations, with automated indicator analysis and evidence collection accelerating responses to under an hour.

On the human impact, the US-based Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) published data on 28 October showing that over 80% of scam victims reported suicidal thoughts. The ITRC attributed this to self-blame and stigma, noting that many victims felt abandoned by institutions; nearly nine in ten sought help but were not contacted, and 67.2% said organisations made them feel at fault.

The report also highlights that lack of support can leave victims exposed to recovery scams, with 78.9% paying third parties for supposed recovery services, and 90.9% of those experiencing suicidal ideation doing so, compared with 6.5% who sought help from the ITRC.