South African users experienced more than 32-million cybersecurity threats in 2024, according to new research from NordVPN.
The study finds that Internet users should be careful when clicking links that appear to have been sent by big tech companies as there’s a good chance these are deliberately misspelled phishing links.
Data shows that Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are the top three brands most likely to be impersonated for credential harvesting.
“In fact, the majority of all phishing attacks use around 300 brand names for deception. The brands themselves are not at fault – such fakes hurt their reputation as well, forcing companies to actively hunt them down. However, high brand awareness can lull victims into a false sense of security and get them to lower their guard,” says Adrianus Warmenhoven, a cybersecurity advisor at NordVPN.
According to the same research, last year there were almost 85 000 fake URLs that impersonate Google websites and services. With more than 6 000 fake URLs online, Facebook takes second place as the scammers’ favorite. Microsoft is in third place, with almost 5 000 fake URLs. Fake AT&T, Yahoo!, and Netflix links should be evaluated more carefully as well. In each of those cases there were around 4 000 fake URLs online.
South Africa experienced more than 32-million malware incidents in 2024 – the highest in Africa. Kenya came in second with 23-million incidents, and Ghana placed third with 12-million.
Data analysed by NordVPN suggest users should also stay away from free video hosting sites – including anime hosting websites – and a few other categories. During 2024, NordVPN’s Threat Protection Pro feature blocked more than 1,5-billion malware infection attempts on video hosting sites.
Other domain categories with the most malware are: entertainment (almost 1-billion malware blocked) and sports (124-million). Closely behind are adult content sites (109-million malware blocked) and file sharing and storage websites (almost 74-million).
“These categories, free video hosting sites in particular, tend to contain a variety of security and privacy threats,” says Warmenhoven “These include nNot only malware, but intrusive ads and trackers as well. Over the past year, Threat Protection Pro blocked almost 7-billion ads and more than 119-billion trackers on video hosting sites alone – accounting for 25% off all blocked trackers in 2024.”.
Web trackers are a broad category of privacy-invading tools that collect information on user activity. Trackers typically take the form of special scripts, browser cookies, or tracking pixels. Businesses use trackers to paint an accurate picture of you for targeted advertising – but if they suffer a data breach, the stored tracker data could end up falling into the hands of cybercriminals.
Warmenhoven explains that websites often share or sell data collected by trackers to third parties. Those who want to protect their privacy can use several tools to become less trackable, such as tracker blockers, which prevent websites and advertisers from collecting data about your online activity.
Malware refers to any kind of programming that was deliberately designed to harm you or your device. This includes malicious software like viruses, trojans, ransomware, and spyware. Malware can steal sensitive data, encrypt important files, or even take over the machine, putting the criminal in complete control.
“It is important to know that malware must be actively brought onto your device, such as by downloading an infected file. One of the most common ways to get infected with malware is through phishing attacks. Scammers use deceptive misspellings of popular brands (such as spelling ‘Amazon’ as ‘Arnazon’) to trick victims into clicking phishing links and downloading infected files. So you should always check the spelling before clicking,” notes Warmenhoven.
Intrusive advertising refers to ads that actively interfere with your online experience. Intrusive ads aren’t content to just stay on the sidelines – they may distract you by popping up randomly while you’re scrolling, open additional browser tabs, hog bandwidth with lengthy videos, or even hijack the page you’re on. Even worse, some intrusive ads may try to infect your device or redirect you to malicious websites.