Look how much more vicious cybercrime got in Singapore

72% of Singaporean online adults have fallen prey to cybercriminals.

According to the Norton Cybercrime Report 2012, 72 percent of Singaporean online adults have been a victim of cybercrime in their lifetime, a decrease of 8 percent compared to 2011.

Here's more from Norton Cybercrime Report 2012:

 In the past 12 months 48 percent of online adults in Singapore have experienced cybercrime, (3,800 victims of cybercrime every day, and 3 victims per minute) and the average direct financial cost per victim is US $657.

Globally, every second, 18 adults become a victim of cybercrime3, resulting in more than one-and-a-half million cybercrime victims each day. With losses totaling a global average of US$197 per victim across the world in direct financial costs 4, in the past twelve months, an estimated 556 million5 adults across the world experienced cybercrime, more than 100 times the total population in Singapore.

This figure represents 46 percent of online adults who have been victims of cybercrime in the past twelve months, on par with the findings from 2011 (45 percent). 

This year’s survey shows an increase in “new” forms of cybercrime compared to last year, such as those found on social networks or mobile devices7 - a sign that cybercriminals are starting to focus their efforts on these increasingly popular platforms.In Singapore, one in five online adults (20 percent) has been a victim of either social or mobile cybercrime, and 36 percent of social network users have been victims of social cybercrime, specifically:

• 12 percent of social network users reported someone had hacked into their profile and pretended to be them.
• 12 percent of social network users said they’d fallen victim to a scam or fake link on social network platforms.
• While 80 percent believe that cybercriminals are setting their sights on social networks, less than half (46 percent) actually use a security solution which protects them from social network threats and only 55 percent use the privacy settings to control what information they share, and with whom.
• Nearly one-third (31 percent) of mobile users received a text message from someone they didn’t know requesting that they click on an embedded link or dial an unknown number to retrieve a “voicemail”.

“Cybercriminals are changing their tactics to target fast growing mobile platforms and social networks where consumers are less aware of security risks,” says Effendy Ibrahim, Internet Safety Advocate & Director, Asia, Norton by Symantec.

“This mirrors what we saw in this year’s Symantec Internet Security Threat Report which reported nearly twice the mobile vulnerabilities in 2011 from the year before.”

Two in five (40 percent) online adults in Singapore report having been notified to change their password for a compromised email account. With people sending, receiving, and storing everything from personal photos (54 percent) to work-related correspondence and documents (52 percent) to bank statements (32 percent) and passwords for other online accounts (23 percent), those email accounts can be a potential gateway for criminals looking for personal and corporate information.