Philippines 7th most attacked country by cyber threats in Q4 2019 —Kaspersky

The Philippines climbed six notches higher to become the seventh most attacked country in terms of internet-borne web threats in the fourth quarter of 2019, cybersecurity firm Kaspersky reported Monday.

Data released by the company showed that a total of 3.906 million web threats were found in computers of Kaspersky users in the Philippines from October to December 2019, equivalent to 31.6% of the overall.

This brought the Philippines to the seventh most-attacked country during the period, following Nepal (37.7%), Algeria (37.4%), Albania (37.3%), Belarus (35.0%), Moldova (33.4%), and Tunisia (33.4%).

The Philippines was the third most-attacked country in Southeast Asia in the first nine months of 2019, in terms of Android mobile malware.

"Being one of the world's top internet users, I think there's no stopping the Filipinos from utilizing the web as a part of their modern way of life," said Mary Grace Sotayco, territory manager for the Philippines.

"We're hoping that as they completely embrace this technology, so too will the practice of cyber hygiene as long as they go online," she elaborated.

The same data from Kaspersky showed that malware attacks on computers from removable media such as USBs, CDs, DVDs, and other offline methods totaled 8.998 million during the fourth quarter of 2019.

This brought the Philippines to the 64th place globally, a drop from the 74th place in the fourth-quarter of 2018 when there were 11.757 million detections.

"The significant drop in local threat infections tells us that there's good news here. Filipinos are slowly understanding the risks, which the numbers reflect," said Yeo Siang Tiong, general manager for Southeast Asia at Kaspersky.

"Shifting the mindset is a collective effort and we'll continue doing our part in sharing our threat intelligence and expertise to the public and to our partners in the government and private sectors," added Tiong.

Kaspersky urged the public to practice the following security measures:

• Carefully check the link before visiting a site, especially for misspelling or other irregularities, even if you think it’s a site you’ve visited regularly before.
• Enter your username and password only over a secure connection. Avoid logging in to online banks and similar services via public Wi-Fi networks.
• Be aware that URLs that begin with the “https” may not always be secure.
• Don’t trust emails from unknown senders until you can verify the authenticity of their origins.
• Always run a system with a quality, up-to-date anti-malware program.

Founded in 1997, Kaspersky is a global cybersecurity firm involved in security solutions and services to protect businesses, critical infrastructure, governments, and consumers across the globe. — BM, GMA News