Digital security today
Online scams grow every year and AI makes them more convincing. Here are the numbers, from official sources, the cases that set the pattern and what you can do.
Data updated in September 2026.
The numbers
€269M
stolen through online scams and fraud in Italy in 2025
+17.4% in one year, with almost the same number of cases: each scam takes more.
3,620
malicious campaigns against Italy in 2025
328 of them used fake fines in the name of PagoPA, Italy’s public payment system, to steal card details.
Source: CERT-AgID
85%
of losses on fraudulent credit transfers in Europe are borne by people
2024 data: almost always because someone talked them into making the transfer themselves.
Source: EBA and European Central Bank
507
serious cyber attacks in Italy in 2025
+42% on 2024. Italy suffers almost one in ten serious attacks recorded worldwide.
How much online scams steal in Italy
| Year | Millions of euros |
|---|---|
| 2022 | 152.9 |
| 2023 | 177.4 |
| 2024 | 229.1 |
| 2025 | 269.0 |
Over €828 million in four years. Cases grew by about 10%, the money stolen by 76%.
AI is changing scams
Messages without mistakes, cloned voices, fake video calls: AI makes scams more believable and easier to produce at scale.
8 in 10
social engineering attacks worldwide use AI, according to observations from early 2025.
Source: ENISA, Threat Landscape 2025
$893M
lost in the United States in 2025 to AI-related scams: the first year the FBI counts them separately.
Source: FBI, Internet Crime Report 2025
Deepfakes
Fake voices and videos make scams ever more sophisticated: Italy introduced a specific offence because of it.
Source: Italian State Police, 2025 data
Scams going around
Recent warnings from the Italian authorities. In the app they will arrive as short alerts, with what to do.
· Italian State Police
The fake fine by text or email
A message in the name of the Italian State Police reports a fine to pay and leads to a fake website that asks for card details.
What to do: The police never ask for payments through a link. Do not open it, and check the fine through official channels.
Source: Italian State Police
· CERT-AgID
Malicious apps for Android
In 2025 Android malware campaigns grew by about 55%: often a text invites you to install an app from outside the store that steals banking details.
What to do: Only install apps from the official store, and do not give accessibility permissions to apps you do not know.
Source: CERT-AgID
Cases that set the pattern
A few well-known attacks, and what they teach about any phone.
2016
One text to spy on an iPhone
An activist receives a text with a link: opening it would have installed Pegasus, spyware able to read everything. Apple fixes the flaws with an update.
The lesson: Do not open unexpected links, and update your phone.
Source: Citizen Lab
2021
FluBot, the fake parcel that infects Android
Texts about parcels on the way ask you to install an app: it is malware that steals passwords and sends itself to your contacts. Europol takes it down in 2022.
The lesson: Only install apps from the store.
Source: Europol
2021
Zero click: receiving a message is enough
Citizen Lab discovers FORCEDENTRY: a message infects the iPhone without the victim touching anything. Only the iOS update stops it.
The lesson: Security updates are the first defence.
Source: Citizen Lab
2024
The $25 million fake video call
An employee of a multinational in Hong Kong joins a video call with colleagues: they are all deepfakes. The employee makes transfers worth $25 million.
The lesson: For money requests, check through another channel.
Source: CNN
2025
The minister’s cloned voice
Scammers use AI to imitate the voice of Italy’s Defence Minister and call Italian business owners asking for money to free hostages. One of them transfers about €1 million.
The lesson: A familiar voice is not proof.
Source: Il Giorno
Why Lysena works on your phone
An app that protects your messages should not send them anywhere else. Lysena checks them on your phone and works offline: no server reads them, no archive keeps them, nobody can steal them from there. Cloud services are only used if you turn them on, for extras.
What stays on your phoneWhat you can do today
- Do not open links that arrive by text or chat, even if the sender looks familiar: go to the official website or app yourself.
- Install phone and app updates as soon as they come out.
- Only install apps from the official store.
- If someone asks for money urgently, even with a familiar voice or face, call them back on a number you know.
- In Italy, report suspicious messages to the Postal Police at commissariatodips.it.
Try Lysena before everyone else
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