"The fight against fraud is no longer just an isolated financial function; it is a critical, cross-functional cybersecurity imperative," said Patrick Sullivan, CTO, security strategy at Akamai.
Akamai and Bolster AI: scams double and overtake phishing
Akamai’s State of the Internet report, using data from partner Bolster AI, found detections of online scams doubled between July 2025 and June 2026. The vendor reported that scam activity overtook phishing for the first time in its data set. Akamai recorded around 6.4 million online scams in April–June 2026, versus 3.2 million in July–September 2025.
The report frames the “scams” category to include fake stores, investment scams, tech support scams and payment fraud. Akamai’s data show cybercriminals shifting toward those more direct, revenue-generating methods rather than relying solely on credential theft or brand impersonation.
Phishing trends: a 61% rise and drastically shorter lifespans
Phishing did not decline. Akamai defines phishing as attempts to steal credentials, authentication information and data via brand impersonation, and detections rose by 61% over the same period. The company attributes that growth to reusable phishing kits, industrialized infrastructure, and the application of artificial intelligence.
AI, the report says, has reduced the average lifespan of a phishing attack from 48 days in Q4 2025 to 22 days in Q2 2026 — a drop of more than half. Akamai explains that adversaries “leverage AI to generate dynamic templates, produce multilingual lures at scale, and deploy condition-aware evasion – drastically lowering costs while bypassing legacy defenses.”
The report also notes the parallel use of AI by defenders: “Conversely, security teams use AI to compress investigation and reduce workflows from days to less than an hour through automated indicator analysis, infrastructure clustering, and evidence collection, disrupting attacks before victims are impacted.”
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End the scrambleIdentity Theft Resource Center: the human toll and institutional ghosting
Data published by the non-profit Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) on October 28 focus attention on the human consequences of the surge. The ITRC reported that over 80% of scam victims in the U.S. said they experienced suicidal thoughts following the crime.
The ITRC ties much of the mental anguish to self-blame and social stigma, and it singled out what it called “institutional ghosting” for worsening victims’ distress. “When general consumer scam victims overcame their shame to seek help, institutions frequently compounded the injury,” the ITRC wrote.
According to the ITRC, nearly nine in 10 general consumer scam victims who asked an organization for help were never contacted, and 67.2% reported that the organizations they contacted “made me feel it was my own fault.”
A lack of reliable support can have immediate financial consequences. The ITRC reported that “abandoned by legitimate institutions and desperate to undo the damage, 78.9% of general consumer scam victims (and 90.9% of those experiencing suicidal ideation) paid a fee to a third party who promised to recover their stolen money, fix their credit or catch the scammer – compared to just 6.5% of scam victims who connected with the ITRC.”
What this means for technologists, policymakers, and consumers
- Technologists and security teams: Akamai’s findings highlight that fraud is now tied to business logic abuse and data exfiltration enabled by autonomous AI agents and synthetic identities. Teams will be watching for attacks that exploit those vectors and for AI-driven, multilingual, condition-aware phishing campaigns — even as defenders use automation to compress investigations and disrupt infrastructure.
- Policymakers and institutions: The ITRC’s "institutional ghosting" statistic — nearly nine in 10 victims who sought help were never contacted — places the spotlight on organizational response. The report's figures on victims paying recovery fees (78.9% overall, 90.9% among those with suicidal ideation) underscore a regulatory and consumer-protection question about how institutions handle outreach and remediation.
- End users and consumers: The data show a twofold danger: a surge in front-end scams (fake stores, investment and tech-support fraud, payment scams) and a persistent phishing threat that evolves faster because of AI. Victims who lack institutional help face a high likelihood of paying for third-party recovery services, according to the ITRC figures.
Conclusion: technical acceleration meets real human harm
Over the ten months ending June 2026, the digital threat landscape shifted in scale and character: scam detections doubled and outnumbered phishing, while phishing itself grew faster and moved faster thanks to AI. At the same time, the ITRC’s data show a deep human cost when institutions fail to respond — with a majority of victims reporting suicidal thoughts and large shares turning to paid recovery services. The record compiled by Akamai and the ITRC leaves a clear dual challenge: contain the rapidly automating attack surface, and repair the institutional pathways that leave victims isolated.
https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/online-scam-volumes-double/
