The Philippines is the sixth country in Southeast Asia where cryptomining malware attempts against small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) were detected in the first six months of 2020. This is based on the latest report released by global cybersecurity firm Kaspersky.
Cryptojacking, also known as malicious mining, refers to the unauthorized use of a person’s computer to ‘mine’ cryptocurrency. A cryptomining malware can overwhelm a PC system, causing severe performance problems that can extremely affect a business’ networks and customers.
“This threat is clearly not as popular as phishing and ransomware primarily because its presence is usually unannounced,” said Kaspersky Southeast Asia General Manager Yeo Siang Tiong. “This threat is silent, hidden inside our devices and networks, slowly sucking our bandwidth, electricity, and damaging our hardware which are all costly at a time when SMBs need their cash flow the most.”
Fewer attempts
In the company’s list of crytomining detections against SMBs in the region, detected malware attempts in the country significantly dropped to 12,012 in the first half of the year, compared to 81,303 in the same period in 2019.
Indonesia topped the list with 720,300 detected malware attempts in H1 2020, also dropping from 1,211,222 detections in H1 2019. Vietnam was No. 2 with 509,023 down from 899,695 in the same period in the previous year. Malaysia was No. 3 with 238,780 (up from 123,772). Thailand was fourth with 232,543 (down from 383,952), while Singapore was No. 5 at 14,141 (up from 7,456).
Kaspersky detected 1,726,799 mining attempts against SMBs in the first half of the year in the Southeast Asian region. Four out of six countries in the region were in the top 16 list globally. Cryptomining attempts against SMBs were highest in the region compared to phishing (1,602,523 detections) and ransomware (504,304 detections) in the period.
In the global list of cryptomining attempts, Russia was at No. 1, with the highest volume of cryptomining prevented by Kaspersky. It was followed by China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
Preventing cryptomining attempts
“We understand that cybersecurity can be an afterthought for SMBs in this challenging period. However, defenses are needed to foil malicious attempts which can damage their systems, devices, and their pockets. There are simple ways to avoid cryptomining such as never using pirated software and deploying enterprise-grade protection into your servers and endpoints,” said Yeo.
Kaspersky is offering a free 3-month Automated Security Awareness Training aimed at supporting SMBs to improve their employees’ cybersecurity know-how. This program is available until September 30, 2020. It works with up to 500 users. SMB owners can learn more through this link.
The cybersecurity firm is also helping SMBs in fortifying their cyber defenses through a promo (buy 1 year license, get 1 year license for free) that also includes: Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Cloud and Cloud Plus, Kaspersky Security for Microsoft office 365, and Kaspersky Hybrid Cloud Security.
