Filipinos are reminded to practice “cyber hygiene” as online fraud and scams increase amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic.
Jose Paolo G. Rufo, Union Bank of the Philippines’s chief information security officer, said in a webinar on Wednesday that the lockdown measures during the pandemic has prompted the public to use digital platforms to accomplish different tasks.
“The Covid-19 crisis has pushed us all to do our transactions online at the convenience and more importantly, at the safety of our homes,” he said. “We can buy our grocery, buy our medicines, our food without exposing ourselves and our families unnecessarily to the threats of the virus.”
However, along with this is the rise of threats to cyber security, he said, noting that 73 million Filipino Internet users are at risk of being scammed online.
Rufo reminded the public to never share username, password and one-time password (OTP) to anyone. “Keep your information private,” he said.
It is also wise to use different e-mail addresses for banking, social media and personal use to protect your accounts from total breach, Rufo added.
He also said that customers should always check for spelling variations when checking for web site links as these can be confused with the legitimate ones.
Among the usual scams now are phishing cases, Rufo said, noting that such schemes trick the customers into giving their personal and banking information.
Citing data from security firm Kaspersky, Rufo said there were 1 million phishing attempts in the Philippines last year, with 17 percent falling victims to fraud.
UnionBank, for its part, is also placing a system to protect its customers from potential scams.
Rufo said that UnionBank is employing banking industry practices, including 24/7 security operations center monitoring and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS).
PCI-DSS outlines guidelines on information security for firms handling credit cards to increase data control and avoid fraud.
To boost customer protection, Rufo shared that UnionBank online application requires biometrics and in-app OTP. Its digital platform is also continuously subjected to vulnerability management and penetration testing, he added.
Moody’s Investor Services, in a news statement last week, said that the increased use in digital banking has made the banking sector more vulnerable to cyber attacks.
Scammers, for example, are baiting customers through phishing emails, or social engineering to acquire bank information, Moody’s said.
The debt watcher, citing VMware Carbon Black, said that the most common cyberattack vector was wire fraud transfers. Fraudsters usually take the opportunity to infiltrate the wire transfer verification process should they find gaps.
Moody’s said that cyberattacks usually go for personal data (77 percent), credentials (35 percent) and bank data (32 percent).
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