Experts at Kaspersky believe that the strong digital transformation movement in the Asia- Pacific (APAC) region will threaten cybersecurity in APAC by 2024.
The threat of phishing, scams, data breaches and geopolitically motivated cyberattacks will continue to target organizations and individuals in the region.
“Asia Pacific ’s digital economy continues to grow exponentially and is expected to continue its momentum over the next five years. With digitalization efforts, including the adoption of technologies such as digital payments, super apps, IoT, smart cities and now artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity will be key to ensuring the resilience of the region’s collective defenses against the potential for damage from cyberattacks,” said Vitaly Kamluk, Director of Kaspersky’s Global Research and Analysis Team (GReAT) Asia Pacific .
“When it comes to advanced persistent threats (APTs), we see that cyber espionage remains the main target in Asian countries in the region and this trend will continue in 2024 due to existing geopolitical tensions,” added Vitaly Kamluk.
According to a United Nations report, hundreds of thousands of people from Southeast Asia (SEA) have been recruited to engage in online fraud such as romance scams, cryptocurrency scams, money laundering and illegal gambling. Recruitment for these criminal activities is mostly done through professional positions such as programmers, marketers or human resources specialists, through advertisements, procedures that appear legitimate and even complicated. The use and trust in digital payment methods, the lack of regulations to protect online users’ rights and the large number of people forced into online fraud activities have added complexity to this major problem in Southeast Asia and in addressing it.
“Law enforcement is working on a number of cases involving phishing attacks and scams, and we have seen success in 2023, such as the Australian Federal Police (AFP), the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Malaysian Police working together to arrest eight individuals behind a syndicate running a phishing-as-a-service campaign,” said Vitaly Kamluk.
“We expect the scale of phishing and online scam attacks in Southeast Asia to continue to increase in the coming years due to the lack of technical and legal knowledge related to such attacks, from operators to victims,” added Vitaly Kamluk.
KIM THANH
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