Heino Gevers, a cybersecurity expert at Mimecast, explains: "South Africans have high levels of trust in the brands they support - 69% don't hesitate to open an email from brands they use regularly, and 56% click on links from their favourite brands. However, with all cyberattack types showing significant increases since the start of the pandemic, consumers are under constant threat of falling victim to cybercrime. This could have dire consequences for brands: our research found that South Africans are the least forgiving of all nations surveyed if the brands they support fail to protect them online."
"Consumers are under constant attack from cybercriminals, who regularly imitate trusted brands to trick people into risky behaviour," explains Gevers. "Nearly half (46%) of South African consumers in our latest survey said they receive a phishing email at least once per week, while 78% had landed on a spoofed website after clicking on a link on social media."
The findings come at a time when cybercriminals are imitating famous brands with worrying ease. In Mimecast's State of Email Security 2021 report, 94% of South African companies admitted to being concerned about counterfeit websites misappropriating their brands.