Digital fraud is no longer a background risk—it’s a boardroom issue. Infobip’s newly released Fraud & Security Trends 2026 report, built on billions of platform interactions, paints a picture of an arms race between increasingly sophisticated attackers and equally advanced AI-driven defences.
Fraud Is Scaling, But So Is Detection
Blocked fraudulent traffic surged 77% year-over-year in 2025, while phishing—the dominant threat—accounted for nearly half of all blocked harmful messages, growing 94% annually. Perhaps most striking: fraudsters are now hiding malicious content within images to evade text filters, while AI-powered image detection has expanded sevenfold in a single year.
The encouraging counter-narrative is that leaked traffic—fraud that actually slips through—fell 42% globally, with the strongest firewall performance blocking 99.9% of fraudulent traffic across major regions.
Regional Hotspots Shift
North America emerged as the fastest-growing fraud region, with blocked messages up 223%, driven largely by phishing and artificially inflated OTP traffic. Europe saw gambling-related spam expand dramatically, while Africa’s fraud mix diversified beyond phishing into new categories. LATAM, meanwhile, positioned itself as the most advanced market for network-API-based fraud prevention.
The OTP Problem
One-time passcodes remain both essential and vulnerable. Artificially inflated traffic (AIT)—where bots trigger fake OTP requests to rack up messaging costs—is estimated to cost enterprises $8.5 billion annually. In response, regulators in the UAE and Philippines are pushing banks away from SMS-only authentication toward biometrics and app-based verification, signalling a broader compliance shift enterprises can’t ignore.
Network APIs Take Centre Stage
Perhaps the report’s most forward-looking finding: interactions with network-level fraud APIs—SIM Swap detection, Number Verification, and KYC—grew 91% overall, with Number Verification alone up fivefold. These tools tap directly into telecom infrastructure to capture fraud signals that no application-layer system can replicate, and banking, fintech, and technology firms are leading the adoption.
Industry Exposure Varies Widely
Financial services face the highest stakes, given SIM-swap-enabled account takeovers. Retail and e-commerce battle bot-driven account creation and chargeback fraud. Ride-hailing and delivery platforms, meanwhile, have made “Number Masking”—anonymising calls between strangers—a near-universal safety standard, protecting both customers and gig workers.
The Bottom Line
Infobip’s message to businesses is clear: static, rule-based defences are obsolete. Winning strategies combine AI-powered detection, multi-channel authentication (SMS, WhatsApp, RCS, voice), customer education, and continuous adaptation. As the report puts it, security is shifting from an afterthought to core infrastructure—and in an AI-accelerated fraud landscape, that shift can’t come fast enough.
