Keeping your money safe with Kaspersky Lab
It has been reported* that cybercrime costs South Africa R622 million, where the financial services sector, particularly the banking sector, has lost R150 million for the period of January 2011 to August 2012.
Says Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kaspersky Lab; “There may still be some out there using grandma’s trusty old hide-it-under-the-mattress option, but protecting online financial transactions has become a number 1 priority for the majority of Internet users – especially when faced with the impact of the statistics above.”
Today, trojan programmes, phishing and social engineering, advanced attacks such as sniffing etc. are the main methods employed by cyber-criminals to get their hands on users’ virtual wallets and purses. This gives rise to the three main problems of protecting against financial cyber-fraud – a lack of reliable site identification; a lack of trusted connections via the Internet between online services and clients; and a lack of guarantees that software installed on a computer doesn’t contain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malware.
Continues Kaspersky; “Many aspects of this problem are addressed with the latest in Internet Security-class protection products, however, this is in no way enough to be safe in real-life scenarios. Moreover, the majority of products don’t even have all the necessary features to provide comprehensive protection. What’s worse, the features they do have don’t work well together to solve specific problems. What’s really needed here is a multi-faceted ‘cure’. And this is where Safe Money comes in!”
Safe Money, which is implemented in the recently launched Kaspersky Internet Security 2013 product, is a technology that is designed to protect financial and other confidential information during online transactions and consists of three key components. The first is a database of trusted addresses for banks and payment services that includes over 1500 different banks in 84 domains. The second key component of Safe Money is a certificate verification service that establishes whether a website is genuine or not. At the same time the technology’s protected browser mode is launched and the computer is scanned for vulnerabilities – this is the third key component of Safe Money. This creates an integrated, multi-layered protection specifically tailored to counter financial fraud and highly specialised malware. Importantly, all the necessary components of the product are synchronised to meet such threats.
In a survey carried out for Kaspersky Lab by O+K Research in 25 countries worldwide in early 2012, when asked which activities they regularly perform on desktops and laptops, 76% of South African consumers responded with the activity of online banking. “Using technology to simplify our lives has become the norm today. I must stress however that it should always be used with caution and awareness of the potential risks that are at bay. Cybercriminal activity is on the increase globally, with no exception to the South African market! Continue to embrace a simpler life but with the know how to get it right,” concludes Kaspersky.
For more information on Safe Money please visit: http://eugene.kaspersky.com/2012/08/14/safe-money-online-banking-security/
For more information on Kaspersky Internet Security 2013, please visit: http://www.kaspersky.co.za/internet-security
The full report on the O+K Research survey results is available at: http://www.kaspersky.com/downloads/pdf/kaspersky-lab_ok-consumer-survey-report_eng_final.pdf
