Kaspersky shares tips on keeping you and your #DuitRaya safe

The pandemic has changed how we celebrate our Hari Raya and other festivals as the inability to travel and social distancing have caused a gradual change over to cashless payments in lieu of the traditional #DuitRaya.

According to the Mastercard Impact Study 2020, Malaysia is in the lead in Southeast Asia for digital wallet adoption with 40% more usage among Malaysians compared to the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. 

With the migration to e-wallets and digital payments comes the inevitable arrival of malicious threat actors with new tricks and tactics to cheat people from their hard-earned cash floating around in all those e-wallets..

“Cybercriminals have several tactics on their sleeves. For example, tricking consumers into downloading fake, legitimate-looking e-wallet apps, which actually are malware aiming to infect smartphones used for digital payments. They are constantly coming up with innovative tactics to compromise e-wallet platforms. And with the ongoing pandemic plus the festive season, we see more social engineering tricks like phishing and scams to trick the human mind,” says Chris Connell, Managing Director for Asia Pacific at Kaspersky.

Data from Kaspersky Security Network (KSN) shows 103,573 mobile malware attempts were detected in Malaysia last 2020. Generally 99.9% of the mobile threats were targeted on Android, and less than 0.1% on iOS. Just to make things worse, Kaspersky detected 156,710 mobile banking Trojans in 2020, twice the previous year. 

“Consumer awareness is one of the most critical components of mitigating cyber risks, especially as Malaysia takes on trends like digitalisation, Internet of Things, and 5G. For us, at Kaspersky, we have been working with small and medium business (SMB) organisations and universities in Malaysia to spread tips on how to improve one’s online habits against fraudulent schemes. When it comes to DuitRaya, it would undoubtedly be safer to use the digital payment path as long as proper safety measures are followed,” adds Connell.  

Kaspersky shares 7 Important Safety Tips

Kaspersky shares 7 important tips on how to keep your ewallets, your #DuitRaya and your phone safer and more secure with the coming Hari Raya holidays:

• Be sure that your smartphone has the updated OS 
• Consider having a solid cybersecurity app to be installed on your smartphone, such as Kaspersky Internet Security for Android to prevent potentially nasty malware from nicking your passwords or worse
• Verify the site or app that you will be using – check if they are legitimate and with strong encryption 
• Always use a strong and unique password 
• Implement two-factor authentication 
• Download e-wallet or payment apps from official stores 
• Be sure to be extra vigilant each time you make an online transaction 

For a more in-depth look, you can peruse Kaspersky’s full text on their page at Securelist.com