Consumers demand strong anti-fraud measures from governments and businesses as human factors remain a key vulnerability
Sumsub's Fraud Exposure Survey 2025 reveals that fraudsters are moving beyond quick money grabs to full-scale identity takeovers for long-term control and higher-value fraud. While financial loss remains significant, 84% of fraud cases in APAC now involve social media and government portal account control, underscoring a shift in attacker priorities. This evolution is part of the broader “Sophistication Shift” identified in its fifth annual Identity Fraud Report 2025-2026—a transition from high-volume, low-impact scams to fewer but highly planned, resource-intensive attacks that deliver greater damage. Powered by AI-driven fraud and professionalized fraud-as-a-service tools, these schemes result in longer-term consequences for impacted individuals and institutions alike, eroding digital trust and ecosystem integrity.
Governments across APAC are responding with stricter anti-scam regulations and initiatives. For example, Singapore enacted the Protection from Scams Act in 2025 that can temporarily freeze or limit scam-linked accounts. The act shifts enforcement toward real-time fraud disruption rather than after-the-fact recovery. For businesses, fraud prevention is a must-have strategic imperative to protect credibility and maintain customer trust.
The survey, conducted in August 2025 to assess the global state of identity fraud, gathered insights from 300+ companies and 1,200+ consumers, including APAC businesses across banking, crypto, payments, e-commerce, and trading. End users from across APAC including Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines also reported on the types of fraud they faced, the financial and reputational impact, and their trust levels.
As identity fraud enters a new era of sophistication, it now spans two distinct categories: first-party fraud, where the verified user is the perpetrator, and third-party fraud, where external attackers exploit or impersonate victims.
Key findings:
53% of APAC consumers experienced fraud in 2025, with phishing (61%) and weak passwords (30%) as the main entry points.
- Over half of APAC consumers have reported encountering, or possibly encountering, deepfakes online (56%), underscoring how convincing synthetic media has become.
- Top outcomes experienced by APAC consumers are social media account takeovers (69%), stolen funds (34%), tricked into sending money (24%), and compromised government portal (15%).
- 89% of consumers would choose providers with strong anti-fraud measures.
69% of APAC businesses faced fraud in 2025.
- The leading first-party fraud schemes faced include synthetic identity fraud (64%), chargeback abuse (64%), the growing use of deepfakes to bypass verification (46%), and application fraud (46%).
- Among third-party attacks faced by APAC businesses, identity theft (73%) is followed by card testing (46%), account takeover (37%) and bot-driven attacks (37%).
- Companies failing to protect consumers risk financial losses (64%) and customer churn (55%).
“Fraud in APAC is no longer about quick wins—it’s about control. Our latest Identity Fraud Report also illustrates that what began as opportunistic scams has evolved into highly orchestrated identity takeovers powered by AI, from synthetic identities and deepfakes to autonomous AI fraud agents and telemetry tampering,” said Penny Chai, Vice President, APAC at Sumsub. “This is no longer a fight against isolated incidents; it’s a battle for digital trust. Businesses that fail to adapt, especially the 44% relying on manual reviews, risk losing credibility and long-term resilience. In 2026 and beyond, the leaders will be those that embrace multi-layered, intelligence-driven defenses and make trust the foundation of every interaction throughout the customer lifecycle.”
Layered social engineering amplifies risks for consumers
Human weakness remains the gateway for digital crime, amplified by AI-driven social engineering. Deepfake-enabled calls, emails, and impersonations confirm synthetic media is weaponized for targeted fraud.
Fraudsters target identities because control unlocks multiple monetization paths. Using stolen credentials, phishing, SIM swaps, or credential-stuffing, bad actors hijack verified accounts and inherit all trust signals from completed KYC checks—enabling them to move funds, alter account details, add payment methods, or exploit that identity across other platforms. Increasingly, these attacks are orchestrated through cross-border, industrialized fraud rings where synthetic and stolen identities interact, reinforcing each other’s legitimacy.
The digital trust divide: regulation as the confidence driver for businesses
Businesses expect the trend to accelerate, with 88% anticipating more AI-driven fraud and 55% reporting a rise in organized attempts. Hence, 63% of businesses support stricter regulations, recognizing that compliance is not just about meeting legal requirements, but about safeguarding growth and reputation in an era of escalating fraud risks.
Consumers prefer providers with strong anti-fraud measures, making trust a key competitive advantage for businesses. Consumer confidence is highest in regulated sectors such as finance (85%), online shopping (77%), and travel (71%), thanks to clear rules and consumer protections. In contrast, trust sharply declines in higher-risk or socially sensitive sectors — crypto services (61%), social media (55%), and dating (42%) — where consumers remain skeptical of these industries’ ability to protect them as scams and impersonation rise.
As APAC becomes the global testbed for AI-driven fraud, businesses must act now to stay ahead of escalating risks, and bridge the trust gap to maintain growth in digital ecosystems.
To learn more about the insights from Fraud Exposure Survey 2025 and the latest fraud trends in the Sumsub Identity Fraud Report 2025-2026, please go here.
Methodology note:
Sumsub Identity Fraud Report 2025-2026 compares internal identity verification and user activity data from 2024 and 2025. In certain cases, 2023 data is also taken into account to observe longer-term trends. All insights included are for jurisdictions with significant user activity on Sumsub’s platform. The data has been aggregated and anonymized, with 4,000,000+ fraud attempts analyzed. All graphs and infographics are based on internal statistics compiled from the data of consenting customers.
To delve deeper into the state of identity fraud, Sumsub conducted the Fraud Exposure Survey in August 2025, gathering insights from both consumers and companies. The survey included 1,200+ end-users from Latin America, North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as 300+ fraud and risk professionals from companies of diverse sectors, including banking, crypto, payments, e-commerce, trading and iGaming.
