ThreatMetrix: China, India, Japan, and Vietnam Are Top Cybercrime Hotspots
- By Winston Thomas
- December 18, 2017
Four countries – China, India, Japan, and Vietnam – ranked as the top countries in the Asia Pacific for cybercrime. According to the ThreatMetrix 2017 APAC Cybercrime Report, China came only second to the US as the source of cybercrime.
The report highlighted the plight of retailers who are under a constant barrage of attacks. It noted that nearly 260,000 daily attacks are detected and stopped in real-time, a 105% increase in volume since 2015.
Besides the volume of attacks, the sophistication and types of attacks are also increasing. According to the Report, cross-border transactions are getting riskier as automated bot attacks target them. It noted that the region sees more rejected login transactions than global figures due to the high number of cross-border transactions.
Catching cybercriminals for cross-border theft can be tough, especially with location spoofing. The report pointed that the region is experiencing high instances of location spoofing as cybercriminals hide behind VPNs and proxies.
“E-commerce sees the highest overall attack rates of all industries in the Asia Pacific region, at 14% of total transactions. Login transactions, in general, are attacked more heavily in eCommerce than in other industries as fraudsters seek to capitalize on the growing propensity to save credit card information to selected trusted brands,” Vanita Pandey, Vice President, Product Marketing and Strategy at ThreatMetrix said in a press release.
“E-commerce account login attack rates are comparatively high in comparison to global averages, and has increased approximately 70% in two years,” Pandey added.
The conclusions are not too surprising. As retailers embrace e-commerce and as consumers look to online convenience to shop and buy, cybercriminals are putting cross-border transactions in their crosshairs. ThreatMetrix advised e-commerce firms to deploy efficient risk management platforms that detect fraud. Else, they will face concerns from an increasingly concerned consumer base.
“Cybercrime continues to grow in Asia Pacific, with organizations being attacked more than ever before, fueled in large part by the proliferation of data breaches that continue to provide fresh identity data to exploit,” Pandey said.
“Fraudsters are acting with haste, before data breaches are disclosed publicly, to test stolen credentials with a view to perpetrate large-volume attacks on digital businesses,” he added.
Mobile transactions, which is increasing, is becoming the next target for cybercriminals. The Report noted that these transactions make up 46% of overall transactions volume, representing a 56% since 2015. They also account for more than half of e-commerce transactions, highlighting the increasing popularity of mobile devices as buying.
Winston Thomas
Winston Thomas is the editor-in-chief of CDOTrends. He likes to piece together the weird and wondering tech puzzle for readers and identify groundbreaking business models led by tech while waiting for the singularity.