Financial phishing proves to continue to wreak havoc on companies and organisations in Southeast Asia, according to cybersecurity and digital privacy company Kaspersky.
From January to June this year, the company detected 336,294 phishing attacks launched at organisations and businesses in the the region, with the attacks impersonating e-commerce, banking, and payment brands and were aimed at stealing credentials and other sensitive data.Â
Kaspersky says financial phishing attacks are rapidly increasing as cybercriminals continuously evolve and adapt their tactics, with the number of attacks rising by 41% year over year. This is underpinned by increased digital adoption and use of artificial intelligence and automation by threat actors to render convincing contents and target victims more effectively.
"The pool of potential victims has grown larger over the past few years given the increased usage of online banking and digital financials services," says Adrian Hia, managing director for Asia Pacific at Kaspersky.
Thailand logged the highest number of financial phishing attacks at 141,258, followed by Indonesia with 48,439. Vietnam experienced 40,102 attacks while Malaysia registered 38,056 phishing attacks related to financial matters. Singapore and the Philippines chalked up the least number of this threat at 28,591and 26,080 respectively. Thailand and Singapore both registered the two highest increase of 582 percent and 406 percent respectively compared to corresponding period last year.
Hia says financial phishing will continue to evolve in this region and sectors like banking, insurance and ecommerce will remain prime targets. Apart from traditional phishing emails, cybercriminals will also continue to exploit social media and messaging platforms to spread fraudulent links, fake pages and apps.
"With deepfakes growing prevalent, we will also see increase fake videos and voice messages that are highly sophisticated and harder to detect. It is imperative now more than ever for companies to step up their security measures, by implementing robust security solutions, adopting best practices and training their workforce to raise awareness of cyber threats and how to protect themselves and their organisations," Hia warns.
