A new cybersecurity survey by Bitdefender shows global scam losses are now at a whopping 13-figure dollar amount.
The firm’s 2025 Consumer Cybersecurity Survey polled 7,000 consumers across the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Australia amid the rise of AI-powered scams.
According to Bitdefender, the financial impact of global scam-related activities is tangible, as fraudsters drain hundreds of dollars per victim on average.
“The financial impact is tangible. With global estimates of over $1 trillion in scam-related losses annually, and an average scam loss of $545 per victim, that equates to over $534,000 lost among our survey participants alone.”
Bitdefender finds that consumers fear AI’s capabilities to create fake videos, images and audio recordings more than its potential to take away jobs.
“AI’s power to aid the creation of sophisticated scams (37%), like deepfake video. But many are also concerned about AI taking away human jobs (30%), its use in driving misinformation (29%) and its toll on human interaction (27%).”
The cybersecurity firm says the fear of AI deepfakes is warranted, noting that scammers deploy sophisticated decoys capable of tricking even the trained eye.
“The rise of AI scams means that spotting fraud with ‘common sense’ is no longer enough… An attitude of ‘it won’t happen to me’—combined with the lure of convenience—continues to drive risky shortcuts. Oversharing and misplaced trust only deepen these vulnerabilities, which scammers are now exploiting at scale.”
Bitdefender says consumers should harden their logins by using unique passphrases and two-factor authentication to reduce the risk of account takeover. The firm also says to limit personal posts online, manage cookies manually, install a reputable security solution on devices and assume that AI is part of the loop.
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