While Indonesia and Thailand registered a slight decrease, the remaining four SEA countries logged an uptick on password stealers detections. Singapore registered the highest increase at 79 per cent followed by Malaysia at 61 per cent.
KUCHING: According to Kaspersky, it has prevented 25 per cent more password stealers in Southeast Asia (SEA) during the first three months of the year compared to the same period in 2020.
Password stealers are a type of malware that steals account information. In essence, it is similar to a banking Trojan, but instead of intercepting or substituting entered data, it usually steals information already stored on the computer: usernames and passwords saved in the browser, cookies, and other files that happen to be on the hard drive of the infected device.
Overall, Kaspersky solutions have blocked 776,684 Trojans designed to steal accounts in the first quarter of 2021 (1Q21), 155,942 more incidents compared with last year’s 620,742.
While Indonesia and Thailand registered a slight decrease, the remaining four SEA countries logged an uptick on password stealers detections. Singapore registered the highest increase at 79 per cent followed by Malaysia at 61 per cent.
“It is known that SEA homes the most active social media users in the world. At the same time, the region is witnessing a massive digital shift at a breakneck speed,” SEA General Manager Yeo Siang Tiong commented.
“We are now a 400-million-strong online consumers, a number predicted to happen not until 2025. Hence, it is expected that cybercriminals would be very interested to take over our virtual accounts brimming with financial and confidential data.
“As we harness the power of technology and the internet, we urge everyone to strengthen their online locks regularly. Like how we improve our security systems as our houses accumulate more assets, we should also be more thorough on how we secure our online properties as we store more data in it.”