Study: Only 1 of 10 Filipinos can identify a safe webpage

MANILA, Philippines - Being a country known as one with the highest number of Internet users in the world, the Philippines is deemed an easy target for cyber criminals.

In a recent survey conducted by Kapersky lab, it was found out that great majority of Filipinos are vulnerable to phishing attacks online as most do not have enough knowledge on how to identify a safe webpage.

To test how vulnerable they are from phishing attacks, Filipino netizens were were asked to choose one of four offered web pages on which they would freely enter their personal information. 

The test aims to test the ability of respondents to distinguish a fake page from a genuine page. For the Philippines, Kaspersky Lab used Facebook, the leading social media platform in the country. 

The result of the survey showed that only 11 percent or one out of 10 Filipino netizens can identify a safe web page. 

The same test was conducted globally and found out that  only 24 percent of users could recognize the genuine page without choosing a phishing page as well. Only one out of four Internet users surveyed could recognize the remaining pages as hazardous. 

“These results suggests that majority of the Internet users are careless and trust easily, including those from the Philippines. Phishing attacks play on people’s trust, so to avoid them, users should have their red flags on all the time. Opt to navigate through websites by manually inputting the address instead of clicking links that are not always safe.” said Jimmy Fong, Kaspersky Lab Southeast Asia’s Channel Sales Director.

He also commented that the Philippines is actually a holy grail for cyber criminals who think ‘the more victims the better’. 

The team therefore recommends that Filipinos should really be more careful as one wrong click can cost them their identity, their privacy and even their money.