Indians rank 2nd as global cybercrime targets

New scam playbook

- Binayak Dasgupta

Indians are the second-most targeted population of a global cybercrime industry that has transformed online fraud into an industrialised, corporate-style sector, Meta —the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp—said in a report on Wednesday.

The findings underscore a growing national problem acknowledged by the government and law enforcement in India, but also signals new strategies — cybercriminals are now adopting AI tools to hyper-personalise their lures, and are looking for wealthy and vulnerable victims — and even geographies: from Myanmar to southern Cambodia.

The scale of the problem is vast and the company’s products are among the most widely used social media and communication tools in the world, making them a vector of choice for cybercriminals. In 2025, the company took down 10.9 million accounts on Facebook and Instagram that it said were associated with scam centres in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Philippines.