UAE, 22 September 2026: LexisNexis Risk Solutions has released its latest Cybercrime Report, “Evolving Threats Beneath the Surface,” highlighting the continued expansion and resilience of the UAE’s digital economy, with digital transaction volumes more than doubling while the overall attack rate declined significantly year on year.
According to the report, analysis of digital transactions in the UAE through the LexisNexis® Digital Identity Network® shows that UAE digital transactions more than doubled in 2025, increasing by 107% year on year. At the same time, genuine customer transaction growth outpaced attack growth, contributing to a 45% decline in the UAE’s overall attack rate. This brought the overall attack rate down to 1.2%, below the global average of 1.6%.
While the overall picture demonstrates continued resilience, the findings also point to evolving risks within specific digital journeys. The attack rate associated with password reset journeys increased by more than 300%, highlighting the importance of maintaining strong identity intelligence and authentication controls as digital activity continues to expand.
The report shows that automated attacks in the UAE increased alongside the rapid growth in digital activity in 2025, with bot attack volume rising 62% year on year to reach 11 million automated attack attempts. This increase occurred against a backdrop of approximately 700 million digital transactions analyzed in the UAE and an overall decline in the country’s attack rate. This trend broadly reflects a global rise in automated activity, with bot attacks increasing 59% worldwide, at a time when new forms of legitimate AI-driven activity, including agentic commerce, are also reshaping the digital environment. In the UAE, automated activity was concentrated in the financial and ecommerce sectors, reflecting the broader evolution of fraud patterns as digital activity expands.
Stephen Topliss, Vice President, Marketing Planning, Global Fraud and Identity at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, said: “The UAE’s ability to sustain rapid digital growth while reducing its overall attack rate is an encouraging indicator of the resilience of its digital economy. As fraud tactics become more targeted and AI-driven interactions increase, however, organizations will need a deeper understanding of digital identity, behavior and intent.
“The opportunity is to use intelligence across the digital ecosystem to stay ahead of emerging threats while continuing to deliver the seamless and trusted experiences consumers expect. As agentic commerce evolves, organisations will increasingly need to distinguish between people, traditional bots and trusted AI agents without compromising innovation or convenience.”
The UAE findings from the Cybercrime Report form part of a global analysis of more than 116 billion digital transactions. Globally, transaction volume increased by 12% year on year, while human-initiated fraud attacks rose 19%, pushing the attack rate up 8%. Attack patterns also shifted, with fraud growth concentrated in browser channels as mobile app attacks declined. Automated bot attacks increased 59% worldwide, with ecommerce and gaming among the most targeted sectors.
The report found that agentic commerce activity rose 450% from Q1 to Q4 2025, creating a growing need for organizations to distinguish between trusted users, malicious bots and AI-driven agents. Account takeover also remained a major concern, with the global attack rate at login increasing by 89%. Ecommerce recorded a 64% rise in its overall attack rate, while gaming saw a 76% increase. Synthetic identity fraud accounted for 11% of reported fraud, overtaking true identity theft.
The report also found that fraud networks continue to operate across multiple regions and industries, including EMEA, North America, LATAM and APAC, affecting sectors including finance, ecommerce, travel, communications, media and entertainment, and crypto. New account creation remained the highest-risk core touchpoint globally, with one in every 11 attempts identified as an attack, followed by password resets.
Against this increasingly complex threat landscape, the UAE findings demonstrate how strong digital growth can be accompanied by continued resilience. As organizations seek to protect increasingly connected digital journeys, intelligence sharing, advanced analytics and coordinated action across financial institutions, digital platforms and regulators will remain critical to protecting digital trust.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions combines global digital identity intelligence, advanced analytics and risk insights to help organizations identify evolving threats while enabling trusted digital experiences.
