Chart of the Day: Singapore has the lowest mobile threats detected, blocked by Kaspersky

A total of 13,227 threats were foiled in Singapore for 2020 and the first half of 2021. 

This chart from cybersecurity company Kaspersky showed that Singapore is the country in Southeast Asia with the lowest number of mobile threats detected, with a total of 8,776 threats in 2020 and 4,451 in the first half of 2021.

Indonesia has the highest number of mobile threats detected with a total of 611,458 mobile malware foiled by Kaspersky during the same period.

The number of mobile threats Kaspersky detected and blocked in the region for the first half of 2021 increased 14% to 382,578 from 336 ,680 incidents in the same period last year.

In terms of percentage of users attacked by mobile malware, 4.42% of users in Malaysia were targeted in the first half, followed by Thailand (4.26%), Indonesia (2.95%, Singapore (2.83%), Philippines (2.27%), and Vietnam (1.13%).

Kaspersky said mobile malware are malicious software that specifically target to infect mobile devices such as handsets, tablets and smart gadgets, and in the continued remote working setup, it can steal an individual's personal data and be a “launchpad for a targeted attack against a users’ employer.

It cited a survey conducted last year which showed that a little over two-thirds of the respondents use personal devices to work from home and employees are also using work gadgets for personal activities.

The most common mobile threats in Southeast Asia include Trojans, which perform actions not authorised by users, Trojan-Downloader, and Trojan-Dropper.