MORE than half of Internet users in the Philippines have been hacked or infected with malware during the last six months of 2016, according to the Kaspersky Lab ZAO. Almost the same number of Filipino respondents admitted their lack of concern toward online dangers, the Russian cybersecurity firm said.
Kaspersky based its assessment on a twice-yearly online survey of thousands of Internet users around the world. The sample in each wave of research represents the adult online population according to age and gender in every country of the study.
During last year’s second half, the global cybersecurity company surveyed 17,337 Internet users from 28 countries around the world, including 491 netizens from the Philippines.
The index includes three main indicators that provide a multi-dimensional picture of the level of danger users are currently exposed to online. These include: “unconcerned”, “unprotected” and “affected”.
The study’s results revealed 50 percent of Filipino netizens remained unconcerned about cyberattacks, which is 24 percent lower compared to the global average of 74 percent. This means more Internet users in the Philippines already acknowledged their vulnerability online.
Filipinos also displayed better online-protection habit, as only 34 percent of the respondents are unprotected, as opposed to the 39-percent global score.
On the other hand, 52 percent of the respondents from the Philippines confessed they were once affected by cybercrime incidents during the second half of 2016. This is alarmingly 23 percent higher than the recorded worldwide rate of only 29 percent.
“As compared to the global average, more Filipinos are aware of the dangers in the Internet, and more Internet users from the Philippines are also safeguarding their devices with security solutions,” said Sylvia Ng, general manager at Kaspersky Lab Southeast Asia. “This behavior is definitely commendable, yet, is clearly not enough.”
Ng added the high percentage of users in the Philippines who were hacked or infected with malware last year showed cybersecurity is more than acknowledging the risks present online and installing security solutions to combat them.
“Filipinos’s defenses against cyber attacks should go beyond awareness and security software, it is high time for netizens to develop a better cyberself-defense instinct that automatically turns on when they go online.”
In terms of the types of threats encountered by Filipinos, the index revealed virus or malware infection is still the top cybersecurity incident in the country, at 43 percent. This was followed by account hacking and data Intercepting while devices are in use, both at 10 percent.
The survey also showed 9 percent of Internet users in the Philippines were tricked into sharing private or sensitive details online, and the same percent were victimized by ransomware. There were also some Filipino netizens whose devices were hacked (6 percent), whose data was leaked by a third party (6 percent), who experienced financial fraud (6 percent) and whose devices was used for a cyber attacks (6 percent).
“The prevalent attacks in the Philippines can be prevented and avoided with an effective security solution and a mindset [that] is highly concerned and always on guard on anything suspicious and too-good-to-be-true tricks that cybercriminals always use online,” Ng added.