Kaspersky’s latest findings paint a troubling picture of digital abuse across the Asia-Pacific region, with India emerging as the most affected market. The report shows that 2,370 unique devices in India were found to have stalkerware installed, while Indian respondents also recorded the highest mean number of abusive digital behaviours in APAC. The data points to a growing and deeply personal pattern of online harm that extends far beyond conventional cyber threats.
Abuse That Begins Close to Home
The study, based on a global survey of 7,600 respondents across 19 countries, highlights how technology-facilitated abuse is often embedded in everyday relationships. Nearly half of global victims said they knew the perpetrator, reinforcing the reality that digital abuse is frequently carried out by someone within a victim’s social circle. In India, the issue appears especially acute, with respondents reporting high levels of digital stalking, offensive messaging, impersonation, doxxing and deepfake abuse.
India’s Online Risk Exposure
What makes the Indian data particularly alarming is the scale of both awareness and vulnerability. A majority of respondents said they had heard of tech-enabled abuse, yet more than half still said they felt unsafe online. That disconnect suggests that awareness alone is not enough to create digital safety, especially when abusive behaviour can be hidden inside trusted devices, accounts and relationships. The findings also point to a broader digital trust problem, where personal safety is increasingly shaped by how securely devices and permissions are managed.
Stalkerware Deepens the Threat
The rise of stalkerware adds another layer of concern. These covert surveillance tools are designed to track a user’s messages, calls, location and activity without consent, making them especially dangerous in domestic abuse, stalking and coercive-control scenarios. Kaspersky’s telemetry showing thousands of affected Indian devices indicates that this is not a fringe problem but a persistent and expanding threat. The scale of device compromise suggests that covert monitoring remains a serious blind spot in the country’s digital safety landscape.
Cybersecurity Must Go Beyond Perimeter Defence
For India’s cybersecurity conversation, the findings are a reminder that protection now has to extend beyond enterprise perimeter defence. Digital safety must include personal security, privacy controls, awareness of abusive permissions and stronger intervention against spyware and stalking tools. As online life becomes more central to work, banking, communication and identity, the boundary between cyber risk and human harm is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
