AI Fuels Rise Of Commercial Fraud In Southeast Asia

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 6 (Bernama) -- Fraudulent activities in Southeast Asia have evolved from isolated crimes into commercially run operations by organised syndicates operating with the efficiency and structure of modern legitimate businesses, according to VIDA Group founder and chief executive officer Niki Luhur.

In a presentation titled “From Fraudster to Syndicate: The Rise of Commercial Fraud in Southeast Asia”, Niki outlined how artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping the digital crime economy, automating and scaling fraud into a structured, industrial-level threat.

“Fraud today is no longer about individuals seeking quick gains; it has become a business.

“When crime operates like an industry, security cannot rely on assumptions built for a different era,” he said, urging Malaysia to rethink its fraud defences in the AI era.

Niki was speaking at CISO Malaysia 2026, a gathering of chief information security officers held here recently. 

VIDA is a leading Indonesian digital identity and fraud prevention company licensed as a certification authority under Indonesia’s Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs.

Meanwhile, Niki also warned that AI-powered threats such as deepfake attacks and synthetic identity fraud are undermining traditional security models.

“This aligns with Bank Negara Malaysia’s decision to phase out SMS-based one-time password (OTP) by June 2026, highlighting the limitations of legacy authentication and the need for a fundamental redesign of defence strategies in the banking sector,” he said.

Niki also stressed the importance of layered and coordinated identity defence, saying effective fraud prevention requires the integration of identity verification, device integrity checks, liveness detection and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) authentication into a unified system capable of withstanding large-scale, AI-driven attacks.

-- BERNAMA