Pakistan’s digital economy under siege by cybercrime

• Federal Investigation Agency inundated with over 722,000 cybercrime complaints between 2020 and 2024.

Pakistan’s digital transformation, once a sign of progress and modernity is now fraught with peril as cyber scams, data breaches, and elaborate online financial frauds surge across the nation.

As digital platforms proliferate, con artists have found lucrative new hunting grounds, exploiting vulnerabilities in everything from online banking to social media investment scams.

Scope of the digital threat

The true magnitude of this crisis is difficult to overstate. In just four years—from 2020 to 2024—the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) was inundated with over 722,000 cybercrime complaints.

Despite this flood of reports, action has been feeble: less than 10 per cent of cases saw formal investigation, and convictions are depressingly rare, totaling only 152 during the period. In 2024 alone, a reported 13,000 instances of online financial fraud led to more than a thousand arrests—but shockingly, only 17 cases ended in a court verdict.

These statistics point to a web of inefficiency and a justice apparatus that is, at best, limping behind the pace of technological crime.

The strain on the financial sector

The financial industry remains particularly exposed. The State Bank of Pakistan’s response in early 2024 saw record penalties—over PKR 776 million imposed on eight major banks—for failing in key regulatory areas like anti-money laundering and due diligence.

Moreover, the Banking Mohtasib’s office resolved nearly 28,000 digital fraud cases within the year, restoring PKR 1.65 billion to aggrieved customers, but these efforts are still dwarfed by the sheer volume of unresolved losses. Public confidence, understandably, continues to erode.

Digital fraud in Pakistan is no longer the domain of small-time crooks—it’s evolved into highly organised, well-resourced rackets. A recent, dramatic case in July 2025 saw the National Cybercrime Investigation Agency (NCCIA) bust a colossal Ponzi scheme run from a Faisalabad call centre, arresting 149 suspects, some of whom were foreign nationals.

Simultaneously, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) is playing whack-a-mole with illegal digital lending apps—flagging 141 such services exploiting users through mainstream platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp. Many simply resurface under new names after enforcement.

Systemic weaknesses exposed

According to the Pakistan Cybersecurity Council, the corporate sector is alarmingly unprepared: more than 60 per cent of companies lack even fundamental safeguards such as encryption or multi-factor authentication. International observers are growing increasingly concerned, and for good reason.

Despite new laws like the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (2016), the National Cybersecurity Policy (2021), and fresh regulatory bodies in 2025, Pakistan’s cyber defense remains splintered. Jurisdictional disputes between the FIA and NCCIA, in particular, have paralysed coordinated action.

The nation’s enforcement capacity is critically overstretched. Only 350 cybercrime investigators are tasked with more than 160,000 cases—meaning each officer must grapple with an unmanageable load of around 6,000 complaints per year.

On a provincial level, resources are almost comically meager: sometimes just two digital tracking devices and a handful of forensic vans for entire regions. Meanwhile, the judiciary is struggling to keep up—lacking technological know-how, specialised courts, or even clear standards for digital evidence interpretation.

Infrastructure: The weakest link?

Pakistan Telecommunications Authority’s most recent Cybersecurity Report recorded a 17 per cent increase in attacks on vital networks, a trend underscored by a global 173 per cent spike in phishing—amply reflected in domestic statistics.

Although the CTDISR-2025 initiative brought in new protective measures, actual compliance is patchy and limited mostly to the country’s biggest telecom players. Sector-based computer emergency response teams (CERTs) for critical industries remain nascent, and overall incident response continues to be hamstrung by lack of resources and strategic focus.