Online transactions: SA still careless

062 A pensioner from Northriding, north of Johannesburg whose internet banking account has been robbed of R31.500 which he believes was an inside job. ( He did not want to be identified.) 280610 Picture: Boxer Ngwenya

062 A pensioner from Northriding, north of Johannesburg whose internet banking account has been robbed of R31.500 which he believes was an inside job. ( He did not want to be identified.) 280610 Picture: Boxer Ngwenya

Published Nov 28, 2014

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Cape Town - According to a global survey conducted by Kaspersky Lab and B2B International, nearly a third of users are still careless when making online transactions.

This puts their own cash as risk, but also poses problems for banks and e-payment systems if they have to refund their clients’ losses. To keep the dangers to a minimum, all parties involved in an online transaction should take adequate security measures.

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 percent 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.

About 16 percent of respondents said they take no steps to protect the passwords used to access these sensitive resources. And 16 percent confidently declared that “cybercrime in which money is taken is a rare occurrence and is unlikely to happen to me”.

About 37 percent 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 percent of Android smartphones have a security solution installed. Worse still, 33 percent of smartphones and 40 percent 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 percent 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.

About 27 percent 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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