Bot attacks surge 116% as automation targets e-commerce, finance

The state’s 1% attack rate remains lower than the 1.6% global average—but the gap is closing.

Singapore experienced a surge in bot attacks in 2025, with the e-commerce and financial sectors being targeted amidst increased automation.

According to LexisNexis’ latest cybercrime report, “bot attacks more than doubled in Singapore in 2025 (up 116%) as both the e-commerce industry and financial sector were targeted with increased automation.”

The report noted that the 59% growth in e-commerce transactions was offset by reduced financial sector transactions, resulting in an overall 23% decrease in transactions.

“Human attacks, driven primarily by e-commerce attacks, rose 2% year-on-year (YoY), but bot attacks more than doubled, driving the overall attack rate up 35% YoY to 1%—still well below the global average of 1.6%,” the report read.

Another report from Kaspersky noted Singapore as one of the top targets for Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and exploit attacks in Southeast Asia.

The company said that it blocked over 2 million exploit attacks targeting businesses in the region last year, with Singapore accounting for over 70,000 of such attacks.

Hackers are also taking advantage of remote access services as a way to gain direct control over systems, with Kaspersky detecting more than 2.7 million RDP attacks in Singapore in 2025.

The LexisNexis report also noted that Singapore’s share of mobile attacks relative to desktop attacks grew 15% this year.
Singapore has rolled out efforts to address this cybersecurity problem.

“Their Shared Responsibility Framework, introduced in late 2024, came into full force in 2025, including additional measures like account drainage guidelines designed to keep scammers from rapidly draining victim accounts within a 24-hour period,” LexisNexis noted.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has also convened the chief executives of major financial institutions to discuss artificial intelligence-enabled cyber threats.

The move comes as the government warned that advanced models are making cyberattacks faster and more sophisticated, Senior Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Tan Kiat How said.