by TMR / pic by BLOOMBERG

SOCIAL engineering scams are the top encountered threat for most SouthEast Asian (SEA) countries, with Malaysia topping the list based on a recent Kaspersky’s survey.

Some 45% of respondents in Malaysia said they have encountered social engineering scams compared to Indonesia (40%), the Philippines (42%), Singapore (32%) and Vietnam (38%).

The only exception is Thailand where its top encountered risk is fake websites (31%).

Kaspersky’s study titled “Mapping a secure path for the future of digital payments in APAC”, also discovered that nearly all respondents in SEA (97%) were aware of at least one type of threat against e-payment platforms, while almost three in four (72%) have personally encountered at least one type of threat associated with this technology.

When it comes to measuring the financial impact of a cyber-incident involving digital payments, the amount of financial loss appears to be mostly capped up from less than US$100 to US$5,000 (RM21,050) , with a very small proportion of respondents having reported incurring a loss of more than US$5,000.

Majority of respondents (52%) admitted that they lost money due to bank account and credit card fraud.

In this group, 23% lost less than US$100, 13% lost between US$101-US$500, while 48% indicated that they did not lose any money from this threat.

Account hacked because of a data breach (47%), fake and fraudulent apps (45%), ransomware (45%), and fake offers and deals (43%) are also listed as the top five threats resulting in financial loss in SEA.

At the same time, the impact of a cyber threat when it comes to digital payments does not just impose a financial burden on consumers, but also affects them from a psychological perspective.

According to the study, after encountering a cyber incident, more than two third of the respondents from the region (67%) said they became more vigilant. More than a quarter (32%) were also anxious about recovering their lost money.

Consumers are also concerned about their trustworthiness. Some 36% indicated they still trust that the bank and mobile wallet provider would resolve the issue, but 18% said they had less trust in digital payment providers. Nonetheless, the consequence continued.

Over a quarter (30%) of the respondents blamed themselves for such a mistake, while a small portion (12%) admitted that they were involved in a misunderstanding with a spouse, family member and friends because of it.