Increased email spam & phishing threats in APAC region detected

ISLAMABAD: A leading cybersecurity company Thursday revealed that the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region including Pakistan had the largest share of email antivirus detections, reflecting increased email spam and phishing threats in the region during 2025.

According to Kaspersky telemetry issued on Thursday, almost every second email i.e. 44.99 percent of global traffic was spam in 2025. Spam consists not only of unsolicited emails, but can also include various email threats such as scam, phishing and malware. In 2025, individuals and corporate users encountered over 144 million malicious and potentially unwanted email attachments, representing a 15 percent increase compared to the previous year figures.

In 2025, APAC including Pakistan had the largest share of email antivirus detections: it reached 30 percent, followed by Europe with 21 percent. Next come Latin America (16 percent) and the Middle East (15 percent), Russia and CIS (12 percent) and Africa (6 percent). As for individual countries, China had the highest rate of malicious and potentially unwanted email attachments, with the share of email antivirus detections of 14 percent. Russia ranked second (11 percent), followed by Mexico (8 percent), Spain (8 percent) and Turkey (5 percent). Email antivirus detections peaked moderately in June, July and November.

Kaspersky’s annual analysis has also identified several persistent trends in the email spam and phishing threat landscape that are expected to continue into 2026. Attackers lure email users into switching to messengers or calling fraudulent phone numbers. For instance, scam investment mailings may redirect victims to fake websites, where they are asked to provide their contact information, and then cyber criminals will follow up with a phone call.

Threat actors frequently try to disguise phishing URLs, for example, with the help of link protection services and QR codes. Kaspersky experts discovered a fraudulent tactic that abuses OpenAI’s organization creation and team invitation features to send spam emails from legitimate OpenAI addresses, potentially tricking users into clicking scam links or dialing fraudulent phone numbers.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026