Thailand’s mobile threat landscape has worsened significantly, with a 127% increase in attacks amid high consumer awareness, highlighting the growing vulnerability of smartphones as digital adoption accelerates across Asia-Pacific.
Thailand’s mobile threat landscape is worsening quickly, even as consumers there appear more alert to digital crime than their regional peers, according to Kaspersky. The cybersecurity company said mobile-device attacks in Thailand jumped 127% year on year in the first quarter of 2026, while Thai respondents posted the highest cybercrime-awareness score in its Asia-Pacific survey, at 39%.
The gap matters because smartphones are now central to banking, payments, shopping and day-to-day communication. Kaspersky said the rise in attacks reflects a broader regional pattern: Taiwan logged the steepest increase, at 373%, followed by Sri Lanka at 132%, Bangladesh at 108%, China at 69% and the Philippines at 28%. India and Indonesia still accounted for the largest volumes, with 18,187 and 15,163 mobile attacks respectively, showing that threats are spreading beyond the biggest digital economies.
Kaspersky’s regional head of consumer channel, Choon Hong Chee, said smartphones are often not protected as well as personal computers, despite acting as gateways to financial, social and work-related activity. The company’s earlier data showed the scale of the problem has been building for some time: in 2023, it recorded nearly 33.8 million mobile-device attacks worldwide, a 50% increase from the previous year. Separately, INTERPOL has warned that cybercrime is rising across Asia and the South Pacific as digital adoption accelerates and organised criminal networks adapt.
The Thai figures also sit against a backdrop of heavy digital use across Asia-Pacific. Kaspersky said online shopping, digital finance and digital entertainment are all used more widely in the region than the global average, while digital wallets already account for roughly 70% of online payments. Its recommendation is to build stronger protections into apps themselves, rather than relying on users to install and maintain separate security software. That approach, the company argues, could better protect sensitive transactions as the region’s mobile economy keeps expanding.
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