Residents In Five Countries In The Asia Pacific Region, Including Indonesia, Are The Most Spam Email Threat Targets

Spam emails in the Asia Pacific region ran rampant in 2022 (photo: Kaspersky)

JAKARTA - Senior Security Researcher for the Global Research and Analysis Team (GreAT) at Kaspersky, Noushin Shabab discovered the landscape of spam email threats in Asia Pacific (APAC) this year had at least 24% of malicious global spam emails detected and blocked by Kaspersky solutions.

The spam email is not the latest threat, but has emerged and evolved since 1978. Its evolution ranges from the latest techniques, tactics, and trends brought by cybercriminals to make it look more officially suspicious for victims.

Kaspersky also said that spam is not a technologically complex attack, but if it is done with advanced social engineering techniques, it poses a major threat to individuals and companies.

Based on the results of the shabab investigation, there are various destinations from spammers and cybercriminals sending this garbage email, including to make money from a small number of recipients who actually responded to the message.

In addition, there are also those that aim to run phishing scams to obtain passwords, credit card numbers, bank account details, and other important data. Or another reason is to deploy malicious codes to the recipient's computer.

In 2022, more than half or 61.1% of the malicious spam detected in the region targets Kaspersky users from Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, and also Indonesia.

Shabab cites there are at least three main factors that cause most spam emails targeting Asia Pacific, namely due to populations, high adoption of electronic services, and social lockdowns during the pandemic.

"Since 2018, the number of malicious spam emails detected by our solution has decreased gradually after reaching its peak in 2019. However, this does not make the electronic mail box cleaner and safer," said Shabab in a statement received in Jakarta, Tuesday, August 30.