Indonesia is the third country with the most financial phishing attacks in Southeast Asia
Phishing threat illustration (photo: Kaspersky)
- Phishing is the most common type of cyber crime. In 2023, Kaspersky's anti-phishing technology successfully detected nearly 500,000 phishing attempts on business devices in Southeast Asia (SEA).
These social engineering schemes will usually offer victims the confidence to be able to obtain valuable information, such as social media logins, to your entire identity through your social security number.
“Phishing is a trusted technique for cybercriminals to infiltrate business networks due to its success rate,” said Yeo Siang Tiong, General Manager Southeast Asia at Kaspersky.
Global cybersecurity company Kaspersky said that these schemes may urge users to open attachments, follow links, fill out forms or reply with personal information.
There are many types of phishing, one of which is financial phishing, which refers to fake resources related to banking, payment systems and digital stores. Phishing of these payment systems includes pages that imitate well-known payment brands.
From January to December last year, Kaspersky solutions detected and blocked a total of 455,708 financial phishing attempts targeting companies of all sizes in the region.
Moreover, Yeo added, the emergence of generative AI could help cybercriminals make phishing messages or fraudulent resources more convincing. As a result, it becomes difficult for people to differentiate between fraud and legitimate communications.
The Philippines recorded the highest number of financial phishing attempts with 163,279 attempts in 2023, followed by Malaysia with 124,105 attempts.
Then in third place was Indonesia which recorded 97,465 incidents, while Vietnam was one rank below with 36,130 financial-related phishing attacks.
Not to forget, Thailand and Singapore also recorded the least number of threats, namely 25,227 and 9,502 financial phishing attacks respectively.