LexisNexis Risk Solutions’ the last one Cyber Crime Report It reveals key global fraud trends that have emerged over the past year. The report shows a significant 8% increase in global fraud rates due to attacks targeting the gaming, gambling and e-commerce industries, cost of living pressures and emerging fraud tactics.
Key takeaways from the 2026 LexisNexis Risk Solutions Cybercrime Report
First-party fraud prevails: Organizations that defraud customers remain the leading source of global fraud for the second year in a row, accounting for 38.3% of reported frauds. This varies significantly by region: 51.7% of fraud in EMEA comes from first-party fraud, compared to less than 10% in Latin America, where synthetic identity fraud (48.3%) is much more common.
Significant increase in synthetic fraud: 11% of fraud now involves a synthetic identity; This represents an eight-fold global increase year-on-year, making it the fastest-growing type of fraud worldwide. Synthetic fraud represents a shift in tactics from short-term opportunism to long-term goals, as these can take months to set up properly. Fraudsters assemble new identities from various stolen identity features and use them to commit various crimes. Due to the lack of a victim to immediately raise the alarm and the potential for high returns, synthetic fraud is becoming attractive to fraudsters worldwide, especially in LATAM (48.3% share).
Agent traffic increased 450% between January and December 2025: This traffic was mainly linked to credit card payments and logins on gaming and gambling sites. Although there is no indication of malicious intent, these intermediaries present a new challenge for fraud detection in the long term by introducing a third type of digital interaction in addition to real human transactions and traditional bots executing a defined set of instructions.
Malicious ‘bad’ bots are getting better at impersonating people: Bots can now mimic real human actions, such as how we move the cursor on the login screen, with a high degree of plausibility in fooling the latest behavioral fraud detection tools. The past year has seen a 59% increase in malicious bot attacks as criminals test and use these advanced tools; Significant peaks were seen in March, April and August 2025.
Scammers target e-commerce and online betting accounts: The e-commerce fraud attack rate has increased by 64% year over year, and the attack rate at login, where fraudsters work to gain control of customer accounts, has also increased by 216%. Growth occurred in all regions, particularly the US, Canada and APAC. Gaming and gambling sites experienced a significant increase in the global attack rate by 76% in 2025.
“Fraud continues to evolve with digital innovation.” Stephen Topliss, vice president of fraud and identity at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, said: “As organizations strengthen defenses across channels, cybercriminal networks are scaling automation, changing tactics, and probing for existing weaknesses in the digital customer journey. Attackers are increasingly relying on advanced bots and AI-driven tools to mimic human behavior and test defenses with unprecedented speed and accuracy.”
Regional fraud trends highlight evolving global threat patterns
- Although there were periodic increases in e-commerce fraud activities throughout the year in North America, the overall attack rate remained stable at approximately 2.2%. Phishing attacks mostly target login activities and e-commerce platforms.
- EMEA’s attack rate increased significantly for the first time in several years, up 27% year-on-year, driven largely by account takeover attempts as fraudsters target authentication weaknesses in digital services.
- APAC continued to see strong digital transaction growth alongside increased fraud activity, with the attack rate increasing to 1.7%. Desktop browser attacks have increased sharply as scammers use more advanced automation tools.
- While fraud patterns in LATAM continue to vary across sectors, the region has seen growing concerns about synthetic identity fraud linked to expanding digital services and regulated online gaming markets.
“Cybercriminals are experimenting with the same technologies that are transforming digital commerce, and organizations must prepare for a future where both legitimate users and malicious actors rely on automated intermediaries to interact online.” Topliss remarked. “Those who succeed must be able to confidently distinguish between humans, bots, and intermediaries, as well as identify intent. We continue to see increased collaboration between organizations with global digital intelligence, advanced analytics, and strong cross-industry partnerships. Organizations that share risk intelligence are best positioned to protect consumers and build trust in the digital economy.”
