Kaspersky Lab has launched a campaign in Asia Pacific to educate the
public and spread awareness on Internet safety. Known as the Goondus Awards, the
campaign is inviting submissions from the public on Internet mistakes and faux
pas that have led to reputational, financial or property damage or loss for
individuals.
The Goondus Awards website which
features the submissions anonymously, highlights real life incidents where a
naïve or ill-informed Internet practice led to some form of misfortune.
“We want to educate people about
safer Internet behaviours and to showcase real world examples of missteps
leading to some form of loss or damage. While some stories may be humorous and
even incredulous, the repercussions and damage were real and in some cases
severe,” explained Sylvia Ng, General Manager, South East Asia. “As our entries are entirely anonymous, we’re encouraging a community
led campaign to drive home the message that only safe practices will make the
Internet safer for users.”
The Goondus Awards showcases a wide
array of stories ranging from humorous occurrences to unintelligent acts and sad
episodes involving monetary or reputational loss. The campaign acts as an
initiative to raise cyber security awareness in an engaging form through the
sharing of personal stories. It also serves to help web visitors foster
positive and pleasant online experiences.
With the ease of access to the
Internet, users have developed a sense of complacency or even a mild form of
naivety in their daily digital lives, potentially lending themselves to
becoming victims of cybercrime.
The Goondus Awards aim to remind users that they are
not completely safe from cybercriminals and that they need to be vigilant,
practice and maintain Internet etiquette to protect themselves.
Malaysians, including millennials and
Gen Y professionals have also been burnt by the infamous love scams. According
to a report by the Federal
Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) in 2016, a total of 2,497 love
scam cases were reported with losses close to RM100 million. It proves that
Goondus are fools for love.
The fact that identity theft can happen
so close to home and lead to financial loss was very disturbing and shocking to
the individuals in this example.
Submission and contest details
The criteria for the story entries are
that they must be based on actual events leading to tangible or intangible
losses concerning Internet use. The winning stories will be selected by a panel
of judges where participants stand a chance of winning an iPad Mini or a Tablet
and even monthly prizes like a Kaspersky Lab premiums hamper. The website also
includes tips and advice from cyber security experts and elaborations on the
different types of scams such as Internet love sex scams, credit for sex scams
and phishing scams, to further inform users.
In 2016
alone, CyberSecurity Malaysia received 8,334 reports related to cyber security
incidents. Between 2012 to 2016, CyberSecurity Malaysia received a total of
50,789 cyber security incidents. Of the figure, fraud contributes to almost 40
per cent or 20,141 followed by hacktivism (9,918), spam (9,210) and cyber
threats (2,333). More than 70 per cent of the incidents reported involved
financial implications, including phishing, online banking fraud, credit card fraud
and online scams among others. Statistics from The Royal
Malaysian Police recorded 113 phishing cases resulting in total losses of RM1.91.
Comparing
last year’s May and 2017’s May result in terms of cybercrime rate, is it
evident that the figure has grown and especially cyber harassment case has rose
over 50% according to CyberSecurity Malaysia. It is also evident that,
statistics in May shows cases such as frauds, spams and malicious codes rose
compared to last year2.
The Goondus Awards website can
be accessed from the following link.
To submit a story, fill in the
requested information such as your name, email address and contact number,
along with the type of scam, story title and the full story in the website. The
“Tips” section of the website features articles from the Kaspersky Lab blog and
are categorised based on the various issues and forms of scams highlighted in
the website. This educational content serves to advise users on how to prevent
such incidents from occurring.
1Express is honoured at Cyber Security event - CyberSecurity Malaysia's
20th anniversary at the Putrajaya Marriot on Friday
2MyCERT Incident Statistics -
CyberSecurity Malaysia Website
