Half of Pinoy netizens hit by hackers in H2 2016 –study

A recent study by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab claims that five out of ten Filipino internet users encountered cybersecurity problems in the last two quarters of 2016.

"More than half of the internet users in the Philippines have been hacked or infected with malware during the last six months of 2016," the company said, citing its biannual Kaspersky Cybersecurity Index.

The study surveys thousands of internet users worldwide. The H2 2016 Index fielded 17,337 internet users from 28 countries—including 491 Philippine respondents.

A total of 52% of all Filipino respondents admitted that they fell victim to cybercrime in the last half of the year—significantly higher than the global average of 29%.

On the other hand, Kaspersky also found that 50% of Filipinos surveyed are unconcerned about cyberattacks, believing that they could not be targets for cybercrime. This is lower than the global average of 74%, indicating that Filipinos are generally more aware of cybersecurity risks.

The above-average public awareness coincides with the fallout from the 2016 "Comeleak" cybersecurity breach, one of the biggest cybercrimes of all time in which close to 80 million Filipino voters' personal information was stolen from a poorly managed government website.

"More Filipinos are aware of the dangers in the internet, and more internet users from the Philippines are also safeguarding their devices with security solutions. This behavior is definitely commendable, yet, is clearly not enough," said Sylvia Ng, General Manager at Kaspersky Lab Southeast Asia in a press release.

"Filipinos' defenses against cyberattacks should go beyond awareness and security software. (We need) a mindset which is highly concerned and always on guard for anything suspicious and too-good-to-be-true tricks that cybercriminals always use online," she explained. — GMA News