According to cybersecurity firm Kaspersky, its anti-phishing systems had blocked over 12 million cyberattacks in Southeast Asia (SEA) in the first six months of 2022 alone, surpassing the 11.3 million attacks the company had logged for the entire previous year.
Filipinos, Malaysians, and Vietnamese Kaspersky users accounted for more than half of all logged phishing attempts in the first half of 2022. In the same period, phishing emails were more common in four of the six Southeast Asian nations surveyed: the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Phishing, a form of social engineering cyberattack, continues to be an important tool that cybercriminals use against individual and corporate victims. They do this by sending out waves of emails pretending to be reputable businesses or people in order to promote fake websites or infect consumers with malware.
A phishing attack’s ultimate purpose is to get sensitive information such as login passwords or financial data in order to commit financial fraud or, worse, to compromise an entire business.
“The first half of 2022 is eventful in good and bad ways. On a personal level, we went through the seismic shift of trying to regain our lives post-pandemic, forcing companies and organizations to welcome remote and hybrid work. The travel sector, including airlines, airports, travel agencies, and more, has also been overwhelmed by the influx of tourists wanting to travel with borders now open,” said Kaspersky general manager for Southeast Asia Yeo Siang Tiong.
“Behind these shifts are networks and systems that needed to be updated and secured hastily. On the other hand, cybercriminals are all ears and with their ability to tweak their messages and infuse them with believable urgency. As a result, we’ve seen real, unfortunate incidents of victims losing money because of phishing attacks.”
