In light of the news that £34.6 Million was lost to cybercriminals in second half of 2018.
Brits lost £34.6 million to cybercrime between April & September 2018 https://t.co/HQw4g6ZFzN pic.twitter.com/PFKliec93M
— Andy Norton (@andynorton27000) January 29, 2019
David Emm, Principle Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab:
“The news that cybercriminals were able to successfully steal £34.6 million during the second half of 2018 is incredibly worrying. People need to be more careful when engaging in online activities, as their lack of awareness could mean they play into the hands of cybercriminals. While technology plays an important part in protecting people from online threats, consumers also need to take it upon themselves to practise caution and develop an ‘online common sense’ to guard against attempts to trick them into disclosing information that cybercriminals can use to make money.
If we want to learn from the pitfalls of 2018, Kaspersky Lab advises businesses and individuals to do the following:
- Secure your all devices using Internet security software– our research has shown that one in three people (30%) do not protect their devices with security software.
- Make sure you apply security updates to your operating system and applications as soon as they are available. The best way for an organisation to combat cyberattacks is by putting in place an effective cybersecurity strategy before becoming a target.
- Use a unique, complex password for every online service. Otherwise, if one is stolen, all of your accounts will be put at risk. To create strong hack-proof passwords without having to face the struggle of remembering them, use a password manager such as Kaspersky Password Manager.
- Practise caution with emails – Always check the link address and the sender’s email to find out if they are genuine before clicking anything – very often phishers create URLs and e-mails that are very similar to the authentic addresses of big companies, yet differ from them with one or two letters. And if something looks too good to be true, it probably is.
- Don’t click on links in emails – To make sure you follow a correct link, type it into your browser’s address line instead of clicking on it.
- Do not enter your credit card details in unfamiliar or suspicious sites and always double-check the webpage is genuine before entering any personal information (at least take a look at the URL). Fake websites may look just like the real ones.
- If you think that you may have entered your data into a fake page, don’t hesitate. Change your passwords and pin-codes ASAP. Use strong passwords consisting of different symbols.
- To ensure that no one penetrates your connection to invisibly replace genuine websites with fake ones, or intercept your web traffic, always use a secure connection – only use secure Wi-Fi with strong encryption and passwords, or apply VPN solutions that encrypt the traffic. For example, Kaspersky Secure Connection will switch on encryption automatically, when the connection is not secure enough.
The opinions expressed in this post belong to the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Information Security Buzz.