Cybersecurity in Southeast Asia at an alarming level

In 2024, Kaspersky's enterprise security solutions successfully prevented more than half a million attempts to access financial fraud links on enterprise devices in the region.

Financial Phishing is a form of attack that directly targets banks, payment systems and online retailers. Attackers design fake websites with interfaces that simulate reputable payment platforms, with the aim of luring users into revealing financial information.

Kaspersky reveals over 500,000 phishing attacks targeting businesses in Southeast Asia in 2024

Mr. Yeo Siang Tiong, General Manager of Kaspersky Southeast Asia, commented: "Based on the number of attacks on enterprise devices detected by Kaspersky solutions, we see that the cybersecurity situation in Southeast Asia is at an alarming level. With the digital economy expected to reach 1,000 billion USD by 2030, this region will become a "hot spot" for cybercriminals to take full advantage of the speed of digital transformation and carry out illegal activities. Therefore, businesses in Southeast Asia need to be especially careful and vigilant."

From January to December 2024, Kaspersky detected and prevented a total of 534,759 financial fraud attempts targeting businesses in Southeast Asia. These attacks, which targeted small businesses to large corporations, were carried out mainly via emails, fake websites, messaging apps, social media, and more.

In 2024, Thailand recorded the highest number of financial fraud attacks targeting businesses in the region at 247,560, followed by Indonesia at 85,908 and Malaysia at 64,779. Businesses in Vietnam also faced 59,450 attacks, while Singapore and the Philippines recorded fewer cases, with nearly 38,000 each.

Mr. Yeo added: "The remarkable progress of artificial intelligence (AI) is being exploited by cybercriminals to create more sophisticated fake websites than ever before. With a large number of fake websites, the risk of users becoming victims of fraud is higher than ever, while the use of AI to identify and prevent scams is still limited. In addition, each business has different characteristics and understanding of cybersecurity, making it difficult to apply synchronous security policies across the region. This inadvertently makes the region an attractive target for financial attacks. Therefore, businesses need to equip themselves with the right tools and update real-time threat intelligence to proactively respond and stay one step ahead of cybercriminals."

To minimize the risk of falling victim to scams, Kaspersky experts offer the following recommendations:

For individual users

• Only open emails and click links from trusted senders.
• If you receive an email from a valid address but the content appears suspicious, contact the sender via another method of communication to verify.
• Double-check the spelling of a website's URL if you suspect it's a scam. Scammers often use confusing characters, such as substituting the number "1" for the letter "I" or the number "0" for the letter "O."
• Use reputable security solutions when accessing the internet. These solutions have access to global threat data sources, helping to effectively detect and prevent phishing and spam campaigns.

For businesses

• Organize regular cybersecurity training courses for employees, so they can recognize and detect early techniques and tricks of cybercriminals.
• Set up the first layer of protection right at your business email gateway. This helps block malicious links and attachments, even if employees still receive spam.
• Deploy powerful and flexible security solutions, integrating anti-phishing technology across all work devices to ensure maximum safety.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/an-ninh-mang-tai-dong-nam-ao-muc-dang-bao-dong-185250327141617084.htm