SA careless in e-commerce

According to a survey by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International, nearly a third of users are still careless when making online transactions, putting their own cash at risk and also posing a problem for banks and e-payment systems if they have to refund their clients’ losses.

Cybercriminals are not only interested in bank card numbers: login credentials for online banking and e-payment accounts are also firmly in their sights. Yet 30% of respondents to the survey in South Africa admitted they paid little attention to the security levels of the sites where they enter their personal or financial data. 16% of respondents said they take no steps to protect the passwords used to access these sensitive resources. And 16% confidently declared that “cybercrime in which money is taken is a rare occurrence and is unlikely to happen to me”.

37% of respondents store financial data on devices with Internet access. This would not be so risky if they always took care to use special programmes for secure data storage. Unfortunately, they don’t. For example, only 58% of Android smartphones have a security solution installed. Worse still, 33% of smartphones and 40% of Android tablets do not even have such basic protection as setting a password to unblock the advice before use.

Meanwhile many users are encountering first-hand evidence that cybercriminals are on the hunt for financial information. Over the last 12 months 48% of respondents in South Africa reported that they had received suspicious emails claiming to be from a bank and asking for password or other information. 27% of users were redirected to web pages that asked for credentials to enter their e-payment accounts.

When users ignore safety measures they can fall victim to fraudsters. However, the banks often end up having to pay for that negligence. With so many careless users, banks and e-payment systems operators must insure themselves against financial and reputational risks by using specialised security solutions that can prevent cybercrime”, said Ross Hogan, Global Head of the Fraud Prevention Division at Kaspersky Lab.

Kaspersky Fraud Prevention provides specialised solutions that enable banks, payment processors and e-commerce companies to prevent fraud on their online and mobile channels. These solutions proactively protect end users and businesses alike to ensure a secure customer experience. The Kaspersky Fraud Prevention solution suite blocks account takeover and phishing attempts, as well as halting and removing malware infections.

Users are advised to install multiplatform security solutions, such as Kaspersky Internet Security – multi-device 2015. As well as offering general protection against cyber-threats they have a special tool that secures online payments for Windows PCs – Safe Money.

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