Half of respondents in international survey have been personally affected by cyber-crime
In developed digital economies, 45% of consumers are worried about identity theft and cyber crime, according to a survey of 3,600 people across nine countries by F-Secure. The cyber security firm believes they are right to be worried, citing figures from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, which recorded 9,705 data breaches between January 2005 and October 2019, an average of 1.8 a day.
“What do criminals do when they get our data?” Fennel Aurora, F-Secure Global Partner Product Advocate, asked rhetorically in a press release about the survey. “As much as they can. This includes accessing our critical accounts to taking over our identities. Or — if the crooks think you’re worth it — they’ll use the data for a targeted attack.”
Three quarters of the respondents from Brazil in the survey had been personally affected by cyber crime, F-Secure said, well above the average of 51% across the nine countries. A majority of the respondents in the U.S. (62%), Sweden (52%), Finland (51%) and the U.K. (51%) said they had been impacted by cyber crime, while just one-third of Germans (34%) had dealt with cyber crime in their family.
Separately, the Bank of Thailand has established “a regulatory sandbox” in which six commercial banks can test facial recognition know-your-customer (KYC) technology to verify the identity of new customers opening online deposit accounts, according to a report in the Bangkok Post. These banks can also now use the National Digital ID platform to verify the identity of customers who use other banks’ financial services, an official from the Bank of Thailand said, while giving assurances that biometric verification is capable of preventing identity theft and fraud.
To read the F-Secure report click here and to read the Bangkok Post article click here.