The development of technology has enabled various countries to develop multiple digital economic potentials, including Indonesia, massively. Based on a report published by the Mckinsey website, the prediction of Indonesia's digital economy in 2025 will reach an estimated number of 150 billion dollars. Google, Temasek, and Bain & Co also predicted estimation number at 130 billion dollars due to the adoption of the use of digital coin payments.
Nevertheless, the economic potential needs to pay attention to the potential level of a crime. Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) shows that 83 percent of its research sample in the Philippines is a target of cellphone-based fraud, 17 percent of which lost money from it. Another CGAP study in Tanzania stated that 27 percent of the sample experienced fraud, with 17 percent losing money. Mobile-based fraud cases also occur in Indonesia. These cases are often known as social engineering frauds.
Social engineering scams carried out by penetrating security networks through user manipulation to obtain confidential information. This technique utilizes victim psychology and targets users who do not understand the importance of protecting personal data and maintaining the security of other classified information. Although not very strong, fraud with this technique occurs in various Indonesian technology, information, and communication industries.
This issue is the topic of the Digitalk discussion with the theme "Preventing Psychological Manipulation: Interacting on the Digital Platform Safely & Comfortably" on Thursday (12/3) on the 4th Floor Mandiri Auditorium, FISIPOL UGM. This discussion is a routine activity of the Central for Digital Society (CfDS) UGM.
The discussion this time, CfDS collaborated with GOJEK. They presented several speakers, such as Adityo Hidayat (CfDS Adjunct Researcher), Ardhanti Nurwidya (Senior Public Policy and Government Relations GOJEK), Slamet Santoso (Director of Information Empowerment at the Directorate General of Informatics, Ministry of Communication and Information, Meutya Viada Hafid, Chairperson of the House of Representatives' Commission I.
Adityo revealed in his presentation that social engineering fraud has occurred in Indonesia since 2013, and continues to grow following technology and community communication patterns. As explained earlier that this technique utilizes the psychology of the victim, he states that the victim's emotional state becomes an essential aspect of this deception.
"This fraud is a problem of the shared community. It is not only related to industries that are responsible for handling it. Multi-actor efforts and fields are needed to solve this problem," he said.
Meanwhile, Ardhanti said that the platform, namely GOJEK, is always working to improve security from fraud and theft of user data. They use three main pillars in this initiative, namely technology, protection, and education—the first two pillars they did by improving the performance of applications and services. Then for the learning process, they do it by engaging in various studies and making studies, one of them with CfDS this time. Besides, they also actively carry out security transactions in several cities.
Meutya affirmed the efforts of the GOJEK. According to her, the applications of these pillars implemented in various technology, information, and communication platforms in Indonesia, especially education, or in this case, digital literacy. According to him, there are two kinds of division in digital literacy. First is technology literacy, which is the ability to operate technology. The second is information literacy, which is the ability to understand and consider precise information through technology.
"The two literacies are important to disseminate to the public. The distance of digital literacy between Indonesian people is still vast. Hence, we have a responsibility as stakeholders to jointly improve digital literacy in Indonesia," she said.
Last, Santoso added that they also enhanced this literacy with technological infrastructure development in Indonesia. "In addition to literacy, as stakeholders, we also need strong technological infrastructure to improve security. With that, we can increasingly improve the safety and comfort of the community in accessing technology," he concluded.
Author: Hakam
Translator: Natasa A