The GCash incident last May 8 is one of the more prominent cases of phishing in the Philippines, and Kaspersky recently reported that the country ranked fifth among Southeast Asia countries with the highest number of phishing attacks at 4,559,288 incidents in 2022. The SEA country with the highest number of phishing incidents in 2022 is Vietnam with 17,847,857 incidents, followed by Malaysia at 8,267,013 incidents.

Kaspersky added in its report that 2022 saw a big increase in global phishing attacks that target mostly delivery services–Kaspersky elaborated that around 27.38% of these incidents were blocked by its solutions. This is a crucial figure, especially with around 70% of consumers in the Philippines considering delivery services as an essential part of their lives–citing the convenience and immediacy of these services as primary reasons for their popularity.

In its analysis, Kaspersky explained that the scheme works by scammers employing emails that are disguised as reputable delivery companies, deceiving victims to believe that there are issues with their shipments. These emails contain links to fraudulent websites that request personal and financial information.

Beyond delivery companies, Kaspersky reports that 15.56% of phishing attacks target online stores, while 10.39% target payment systems and banks–which was the case for GCash in the Philippines a few months ago.