Southeast Asia workers vulnerable to phishing

MANILA, Philippines  – Almost one in five employees in Southeast Asia clicks on suspicious emails designed to trick users into giving out sensitive and personal information, according to Kaspersky, noting these workers usually overlook the signs of a phishing scam.

The cybersecurity firm, in a recent statement, said that about 16 percent to 18 percent of the employees in the region “tend not to notice pitfalls hidden in emails devoted to corporate issues and online delivery problem notifications.”

These emails are usually about reservation confirmations from a booking service, notification about an order placement and even those coming from a supposed IKEA announcement.

“It’s interesting to see companies being targeted by financial phishing but we have to remember here that businesses, at their core, are still made up of humans,” Kaspersky general manager for Southeast Asia Yeo Siang Tiong said.

“Phishing is a type of social engineering attack. Social engineering attack is dubbed as hacking of the human mind,” he added.

Last year, the cybersecurity company blocked more than 820,000 financial phishing attacks that targeted enterprises — ranging from small and medium businesses to big companies — in the region.

Nearly 53,000 of the digital attacks were detected in the Philippines. Most of the cyber threats were blocked in Indonesia with more than 208,000, followed by Vietnam with about 172,000.

Kaspersky explained that financial phishing does not only target bank accounts but also payment systems and online shops.

Hackers launch fake websites impersonating well-known brands, including PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Amazon, the Apple Store, Steam and eBay. INQ

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