New research spotlights protecting customers from cyberattacks

By Werno Gevers, cybersecurity expert at Mimecast

The importance of brands in protecting their clients against cyberattacks has been highlighted in the new study.

According to a Mimecast survey, 75% of consumers in Saudi Arabia and 78 percent of consumers in the United Arab Emirates stated they would stop spending money with their favorite brand if they were the victim of a phishing attack involving that company. When compared to the global average of 57 percent, the region’s consumers are among the most ruthless of all the markets surveyed.

Consider that, according to research conducted earlier in 2020, 36 percent of organizations in the region experienced an increase in brand impersonation via counterfeit websites, and 40 percent witnessed an increase in harmful email spoofing, and companies confronted a severe difficulty in protecting their customers.

They must defend them. More than 80% of consumers in the region believe it is the brand’s obligation to protect itself from email impersonation (83 percent in the UAE, 82 percent in KSA). A similar amount of respondents believe it is the brand’s obligation to protect itself from bogus versions of its website.

The data clearly demonstrates the reasons. In the UAE, 82% of consumers have received phishing emails, while 71% of consumers in Saudi Arabia have received phishing emails. Following a web search, two-thirds of consumers in Saudi Arabia and more than three-quarters of consumers in the UAE were routed to a faked website.

The financial imperatives of providing proper safety for clients online are evident, given the continuous transition to online commerce and digital interactions between businesses and their customers.

Organizations will need to go to greater lengths to defend their brands from fraudsters who replicate their websites and emails and launch phishing attacks on their customers as we approach the peak holiday shopping season.

Effective safeguards, such as brand exploit protection services and DMARC can help criminals avoid imitating well-known companies and duping their customers. According to Mimecast’s State of Email Security 2021 report, seven out of ten firms in the UAE have already implemented a brand protection service, with another 27% planning to do so in the near future.

While only 23% of respondents indicated they utilize DMARC, a technology that helps protect organizations’ email domains from being hijacked by threat actors, 62% said they are in the process of doing so or plan to do so within the next year.

Customers can also be protected by increasing their cyber knowledge. Customers may help screen out potentially harmful emails by examining URLs within emails, double-checking spelling, and researching the sender online.