Detections of online scams doubled between July 2025 and June 2026, according to Akamai’s State of the Internet (SOTI) report that uses data from partner Bolster AI. The report recorded around 6.4 million scams in April-June 2026, overtaking phishing for the first time, while phishing detections rose 61% and the average attack lifespan fell from 48 days in Q4 2025 to 22 days in Q2 2026. Akamai attributes the surge to cybercriminals exploiting autonomous AI agents and synthetic identities for business-logic abuse and zero-click data exfiltration. Phishing kits, industrialised infrastructure and AI also accelerated attacks, though security teams are using AI to cut investigation times from days to under an hour. The Identity Theft Resource Center found over 80% of US scam victims reported suicidal thoughts, with 78.9% paying fees to recovery scams after being abandoned by institutions. 1