Kaya 959 Reporter
How safe is your information on the internet, compared to the rest of the world?
This is a question a new study has answered and it is not looking good.
According to a study by cybersecurity firm Surfshark, SA is among the top 10 countries that saw the most cybercrime in 2021.
The aggregate numbers in South Africa, which came in sixth place, are much lower than those in the United Kingdom, which led to the overall cybercrime density list for the second year in a row.
To put it in context, South Africa had 52 victims per million internet users, about 92 times less than the top-ranked UK (4,783 victims per one million users).
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Kaya Biz with Gugulethu Mfuphi spoke to Loyiso Boyce, Tech Expert and MD of CLYROFOR about what this means for consumers as well as businesses in South Africa.
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Boyce gave a brief overview of the reality of the extent of cybercrime in South Africa
“It is not this far fetched thing anymore. Typically what happens is when we have this type of chat I get messages from people saying I have been scammed please assist, the last time we spoke there was a gent who was scammed for R700 000.
“This is the reality and it is no longer this far fetched thing, and they are all using the same techniques.”
“One of the things they use is phishing, which is the number one technique they are going for, where thy pretend to be someone they are not.” says Boyce
Boyce gave other modus operandi used by cybercriminals in South Africa and ways to shield yourself from attacks.
For the third year in a row, phishing is the most widespread cybercrime, according to Surfshark’s research.
There were 323,972 phishing victims in 2021. In other words, every second person who fell victim to an online crime was a phishing victim.
There will be 241,343 phishing victims in 2020.
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