KEEPING SAFE ONLINE CYBERCRIME AND FRAUD

In recent months, we have seen a spike in cybercrime and fraud in the country. Just last May, one of the biggest e-wallets found itself under a lot of scrutiny following a massive phishing attempt that tried to take PHP37-million from users. Fortunately, the company managed to freeze the accounts, and their money returned to the affected users. Last year, a government bank also experienced a massive phishing attack, this time aimed at public school teachers and their hard-earned cash.

- Gabriel Pe

Beyond Phishing, there has also been a rise in other forms of cybercrime. Among these are Romance Scams that target the emotionally vulnerable, and its progenitor, the pernicious identity theft. Finally, there are the unrelenting attacks from various malware and ransomware taking advantage of your vulnerable devices.

Phishing: the most common cybercrime

Phishing is one of the most common cybercrimes in the country. Statista, a German online data gathering platform, recorded 1.8 million phishing attacks in the Philippines just for the first half of 2022. Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky has also reported that the Philippines has been a major target for phishing attacks on finance related transactions. The majority of these attacks have targeted payment systems, including credit and debit cards as well as mobile payment apps or e-wallets.

Phishing occurs when internet criminals try to fool victims by sending links to their emails. These links can either be malware or a fake webpage of another familiar website. More often than not, these websites are almost indistinguishable from the real one, giving victims a false sense of security to input sensitive information.

This information would then be used by the criminals to access the real website and complete their attack. Even more deceitful is Spear Phishing where the criminal specifically targets an individual, utilizing his/her name to make the email seem more legitimate and thus more easily fool unsuspecting victims.