打击数字诈骗：应对紧迫的发展挑战（英）2026

STEMMING THE TIDE ON AN URGENTDEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE UNDP Issue Brief Executive Summary digital trust, support safer participation in thedigital economy, and advance the SustainableDevelopment Goals. This opportunity hingeson the power of collective action: coordinatedefforts across governments, financial institutions,platforms, and civil society that span the full scamslifecycle are essential to increase safety andrebuild trust online. A text message offering a flexible employmentopportunity. A direct message sharing a newinvestment scheme. An email warning of unpaidfines. Digital scams have become a globaldevelopment challenge, inflicting costs of up toone trillion dollars annually. Beyond financial losses, scams inflict emotionalharmand erode trust in digital systems,weakening confidence in governments, financialinstitutions, and online services. As countriesaccelerate digital transformation – expandingdigital payments, digital public infrastructure, andonline public services – scammers are exploitingnew and existing vulnerabilities such as gaps indigital literacy, consumer protection, and scamdetection capacities. This brief is intended for policymakers, practitioners,and international and private-sector partnersengaged in building safer and more inclusivedigital ecosystems. UNDP will work to counter digital scams by aimingto help countries mobilize evidence, strengthencapacity, and create safer, more resilient digitalenvironments. This approach is grounded inUNDP’s whole-of-society digital transformationframework, an intentionally inclusive approach tobuild ownership, support human-centered design,and mitigate risks. It is informed by UNDP’s workwith more than 130 countries to support coredigital transformation, including the strengtheningof infrastructure and practices that improveintegrity, authentication, and data provenance indeveloping countries. The threat is especially acute in developingcountries, where lower institutional capacitiesand higher levels of economic precarity increaseexposure and amplify losses. Four trends areaccelerating this challenge: rapid digitalization, AI-enabled scams, expanded demographic targeting,and declining institutional trust. Effectively countering digital scams is essentialnot only to mitigate harm, but also to strengthen P A R T1 Why digital scams are a critical development challenge Digital technologies hold enormous potential foraccelerating global development and prosperity.Indeed, research shows that digital technologiessupport more than 70 percent of the SustainableDevelopment Goals’ (SDGs) targets.iAt the sametime, the use of digital tools also introducesnew vulnerabilities and reveals systemic gaps,increasing exposure to new and emerging formsof harm, including digital scams. Digital Scams Digitalscams or tech-enabled scamsare deceptive activities that use digitaltechnologies to manipulate or trick individualsinto transferring funds, disclosing sensitiveinformation, or enabling unauthorizedaccess to their accounts and identities. Theycan cause financial, social, emotional, andpsychological harm. A One Trillion Dollar Challenge Digital scams are deceptive activities that use digitaltechnologies to manipulate or trick individuals intotransferring funds, disclosing sensitive information,or enabling unauthorized access to their accountsand identities.*They can cause financial, social,emotional, and psychological harm. Today’sdigital scams are often carried out using socialengineering tactics and conducted via trusteddigital pathways. Scammers psychologicallymanipulate their victims into giving up sensitiveand confidential information (i.e. phishing) orperforming actions that compromise security byexploiting their trust. This may be done throughimpersonation of an institution, authority, familymember, or celebrity. Scammers manipulate theirvictims by creating urgency around a time-sensitivesituation or building what feels like deep emotionalconnections with their victims. According to research by the Global Anti-ScamAlliance, digital scams are estimated to cost theworld between 442 billion and one trillion USDeach year. Globally, more than half of peoplearound the world have been exposed to a digitalscam in the last 12 months.iiBut even these figureslikely significantly undercount the incidence ofdigital scams as many encounters go unreported.Although not a new form of digital threat, digitalscams have grown precipitously over the past fiveyears, into what is sometimes referred to as a globalscamdemic or scampocalypse.iiiThis increase wasinitially driven by the lockdowns and economicshocks of the COVID-19 pandemic and is nowaccelerated by advances in artificial intelligenceand other emerging technologies.iv * For the purposes of this brief, “digital scams” are defined in here and refer to digital deception targeting individuals. This briefexplicitly excludes broader forms of financial fraud and wider cybercrime landscape, which are legally and