Kaspersky is warning Filipinos from carefree plugging of USB devices into their devices as a recent finding claims that 36.80 percent—or roughly 1 in 3—are attacked by local threats in 2023.

Local threats are described as malicious software that proliferates via removable media, such as flash drives, and even CDs and DVDs, as well as other “offline” methods. A large number of cases of which are attributed to worms and viruses.

Within Southeast Asia, the Philippines ranked third among countries with the most number of users attacked by local threats, per Kaspersky Security Network (KSN). The country follows Indonesia (41.10 percent) and Vietnam (53.30 percent), in second and first place, respectively.

Filipinos-risk-malicious-USB-devices

Globally, the Philippines ranked 76th place in 2023, dropping four places from 2022 and six places from 2021. Per the 2019 record, Kaspersky has found out that local threats are commonplace in the country by 42 percent to 51 percent. In 2023, the cybersecurity solutions provided claims to have detected and blocked some 22,731,157 local threats.

Meanwhile, the top ten most attacked countries appear to be coming from Central Asia, South Asia, and Africa. From top to bottom, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Tajikistan, Myanmar, Uzbekistan, Burundi, Bangladesh, Algeria, and Belarus.

Although USB manufacturers adhere to the FIPS 140 certification standard that suggests a cryptographic security disclosure and validation process, some remain susceptible to attacks.

Consequently, the dangers of USB are classified as follows:

  • Serendipitous: Vulnerable to opportunistic attack with minimal resources.
  • Professional: Susceptible to attack with resources, though limited in capacity.
  • State-sponsored: Involves multiple attackers, with plenty of resources.

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