BANGKOK, Thailand — Mobile cyberattacks across the Asia-Pacific region are becoming more targeted and sophisticated, with Thailand recording the sharpest concentration of attacks in Southeast Asia, according to Kaspersky. Analysis covering eight Asia-Pacific markets in the first quarter of 2026 found that the average number of mobile threats detected per user rose 49% year on year, from 4.9 to 7.3 detections per user.
Thailand recorded more than twice as many detections, reaching 2,494 cases. The detection rate per Thai user jumped from 3.0 to 11.9, the highest concentration reported in Southeast Asia.
India and Indonesia recorded the region’s highest overall numbers, with 18,187 and 15,163 detections respectively.
Kaspersky said cybercriminals are moving away from broad, mass attacks towards smaller, more personalised campaigns designed to target individuals more precisely. Artificial intelligence is also making scams harder to identify. Research in the global “The Great Messaging Heist” study found that scammers are increasingly using AI-generated messages, cloned voices and deepfake videos to impersonate people known to their victims.
These scams are commonly distributed through SMS, messaging apps and social media, alongside social-engineering techniques such as typosquatting, in which fake websites use addresses resembling legitimate ones. More than 52% of successful scams studied took less than 30 minutes to convince victims to transfer money or reveal sensitive information.
Chun Hong Chee, Kaspersky’s Head of Consumer Channel Sales for Asia-Pacific, said mobile threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated as criminals combine evasive techniques, embedded malware and AI-powered deception.
Kaspersky recommends that users carefully check an app’s legitimacy and requested permissions before downloading, enable multi-factor authentication wherever available, treat free rewards and cashback offers with caution, inspect links carefully, and keep operating systems updated.
The company also recommends using a trusted mobile cybersecurity solution for continuous protection.
