Almost two thirds of people in South Africa have faced online threats involving attempted money theft, according to a survey by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International.<\/p>\n
According to the survey, 64% of users locally faced financial cyber-attacks during 2014, with 10% of respondents reportedly losing money as a result.<\/p>\n
When explaining how they lost the money, 14% of respondents in South Africa stated that hackers had stolen their money by gaining access to their payment services accounts, 20% believed they had fallen for fraudsters\u2019 tricks and entered their credentials on a fake website and 8% were sure that their logins and passwords had been intercepted by malware.<\/p>\n
The average amount stolen from each user was $190, but one victim in five lost over $1,000 to this type of online fraud.<\/p>\n
The quickest way of digging into users\u2019 wallets is to gain access to their accounts for payment systems, online banking or online shops that store bank card data, Kaspersky noted.<\/p>\n
During the year, many users\u2019 online accounts \u2013 email, social networking, etc. \u2013 were hacked. This was reported by 19% of respondents.<\/p>\n
In addition to being used by cybercriminals to send spam and malicious URLs, compromised accounts can be a source of financial losses. Information that can be found in a user\u2019s mailbox often includes account credentials sent by payment services and online stores in response to registration and password recovery requests.<\/p>\n
Kaspersky’s research found that nearly half (48%) of respondents reported a malware-related incident within the past year, with one incident in five resulting in financial losses.<\/p>\n
The average damage caused by malware amounted to $130 including, among other costs, expenses associated with mitigating the consequences of infection, getting help from IT experts and purchasing specialised software.<\/p>\n