ASIA-PACIFIC (APAC) consumers lead their global counterparts in terms of both the use of digital platforms and awareness of cybercrimes, global cybersecurity and digital privacy company Kaspersky said.
A B2C Pulse Survey conducted by Kaspersky Market Intelligence showed that consumers in the region outpace their global peers in terms of online shopping (80% versus 71%), digital finance (72% versus 70%), digital entertainment (70% versus 62%), and digital communication (68% versus 61%).
With their high usage of digital channels, they are also conscious of the dangers of the online world, with 35% saying they are aware of cybercrimes versus the 32% global average.
“The awareness is highest in Thailand (39%), followed closely by Malaysia (38%), Indonesia (35%), China (34%), India (32%), and Vietnam (31%),” Kaspersky said.
“When 77% of APAC is online and digital wallets account for roughly 70% of online payments, cybersecurity is no longer optional. The region expects 2.11 billion mobile subscribers by 2030, which makes protecting personal data and financial transactions critical to sustaining trust in the region’s thriving digital economy,” said Choon Hong Chee, head of Consumer Channel for APAC at Kaspersky.
With consumers increasingly becoming mobile-first, embedded security on phones is becoming more important, the company said.
This comes as Kaspersky said it blocked nearly 30,000 mobile attacks against consumers in the region during the first three months of 2026, with India and Indonesia logging the highest number of mobile attacks with 18,187 and 15,163 incidents, respectively.
“However, this type of threat is ballooning in other APAC countries,” it said.
Kaspersky saw a year-on-year increase of 28% in mobile attacks in the Philippines in the first quarter.
Other countries also saw steep increases over the same period, such as Taiwan (373%), Sri Lanka (132%), Thailand (+127%), Bangladesh (108%), and China (69%).
“The rapid rise in mobile attacks across multiple APAC markets is a reflection of how quickly the region’s digital habits are changing. While the nearly 30,000 mobile threats detected in just the first quarter may appear small against the scale of APAC’s digital population, they could represent only the tip of the iceberg,” Mr. Choon said. “India and Indonesia recorded the highest volumes, but the sharp year-on-year increases seen in Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Bangladesh show that mobile threats are rapidly expanding beyond the region’s largest digital economies.”
“Unlike PCs, mobile phones are often not protected with the same level of security, despite increasingly becoming the gateway to our financial, social and professional lives. As cybercriminals follow this shift, the challenge is ensuring that mobile security evolves at the same pace as adoption.”
Kaspersky said this shows that building protection directly into mobile applications is becoming increasingly important as developers should not rely solely on users to install and maintain separate security solutions on their mobile devices.
“This embedded approach to mobile security is particularly relevant as smartphones increasingly become the primary gateway to banking, payments, shopping and other sensitive digital services. By integrating security into the applications themselves, organizations can help provide protection without placing the entire responsibility on consumers to identify and respond to increasingly sophisticated mobile threats,” it said.
It added that its Kaspersky Mobile Security SDK enables organizations like banks, retailers, government services and app developers to integrate multilayered security directly into their mobile applications.
Other solutions provided by the company are Kaspersky Who Calls SDK, which enables integrated caller identification and reputation information to help users identify potentially suspicious or unwanted calls and numbers, and Kaspersky Safe Web, which is able to help scan users’ web traffic to identify potentially dangerous links before users access them. — Bettina V. Roc
Click Here For The Original Source.
