Why concerns me?
The proliferation of electronic services, e.g. e-shopping, e-banking, e-learning, has underpinned changes in many aspects of our daily lives. People's awareness of the threats and associated risks can help minimise the chance of becoming a victim in identity theft incidents, or personal information, financial assets or sensitive information being stolen or misused by others.
Through the promotion of both the public and private organizations, it is seen that user awareness on information security has increased in recent years. However, the attacks pointing towards users are not diminishing in any way. Statistics extracted below helps illustrate the situation.
Fraud Alerts
HKMA's alerts to public on suspicious fraudulent website, letters, email, telephone system from 2003 to 2011 are summarized below
| Year | Fraud Alerts |
|---|---|
| 2003 | 6 |
| 2004 | 30 |
| 2005 | 25 |
| 2006 | 21 |
| 2007 | 33 |
| 2008 | 12 |
| 2009 | 13 |
| 2010 | 16 |
| 2011 | 21 |
The fraud cases are not limited to website only. There were also reports on fraudulent letters purporting to be issued by authorised institutions; fraudulent telephone banking system purporting to be related to a legitimate bank; and fraudulent e-mail purporting to be sent from a legitimate bank requesting victims to link to fraudulent website.
There is a common misperception that only naive users will become victims of those attacks. However, attacks are just continually becoming more sophisticated and common in place that any less cautious or unsuspecting users may fall victim.
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