Indonesia Becomes The Country With The Most Phishing Counts In The Financial Sector

JAKARTA - Phishing is one of the most common forms of cybercrime, as criminals only require minimal effort and the fact that it will actually work.

This type of crime is usually built with a simple scheme, namely using carefully made emails or notifications that mimic messages from banks, government organizations, and so on, cybercriminals can trick users into following links to fake websites and submitting details or personal payment information and even downloading malicious programs.

In 2022, Kaspersky has blocked a total of 822,536 financial phishing targeted at companies in Southeast Asia (SEA). From MSMEs to large companies, financial phishers continued to try to infect businesses in the region last year.

In this case, financial phishing not only refers to banking-specific phishing but also online payment systems and stores or often referred to as e-shops.

Payment system phishing includes pages that mimic well-known payment brands, such as PayPal, MasterCard, American Express, Visa, and others. While e-shops refer to online stores and sales sites such as Amazon, Apple Store, Steam, eBay, etc.

In this case, Indonesia recorded the highest number of financial phishing incidents with a total of 208,238 phishing, followed by Vietnam with 172,694, and Malaysia with 120,656.

More than that, Thailand also recorded the highest number of phishing with 101,461 financial-related phishing efforts, and was followed by the Philippines with 52,914, and Singapore with 22,109.

"It's not a new thing to see the company being targeted by financial phishing, but we have to remember here that business, in essence, still consists of humans," said Yeo Siang Tiong, General Manager for Southeast Asia at Kaspersky in a statement received.

Furthermore, Yeo also stated that phishing is a type of social engineering attack dubbed a hack of the human mind.

"With nine out of ten employees requiring basic cybersecurity skills training, cybercriminals know that employees remain the easiest gaps to launch cyber attacks on companies," he concluded.