Cyber Crime Increased by 127pc In 2010

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 9 – Incidents of cyber crime in the country jumped by 127 per cent last year, or the equivalent of 8,090 cases compared to 3,564 cases in 2009, CyberSecurity Malaysia announced today.

Chief executive officer, Lt. Kol (Ret.) Husin Jazri said that of all the cases reported last year, the majority involved online fraud and deception, or the equivalent of 2,212 cases.

“In 2009, only 3,564 cases were recorded by Cyber999 but that number jumped to a much higher level last year,” he told reporters after the launch of the KL GreenHat 2011 challenge at Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) here, today.

The two-day challenge was officiated by the dean of the Malaysia Institute of Information Technology (MIIT), Dr Roslan Ismail.

Husin said many cases revolved around personal attacks of a political nature, pornography, fraud and computer viruses.

“There were 419 cases of blackmail last year,” he added.

CyberSecurity Malaysia is the national cyber security specialist under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) that runs the Cyber999 Help Centre which is tasked with eradicating cyber crime.

Meanwhile, Roslan said ethical hacking represented one of the challenges at KL GreenHat 2011.

He said ethical hackers are not individuals who trespass and steal information but those who help strengthen existing systems from being hacked.

Moreover, the increase in ethical hackers allows for more far-reaching cyber security as well as a more thorough examination of computer systems, including the internet and computer applications.

Ethical hackers would be able to determine if any data was at risk of being compromised and suggest ways of overcoming such weaknesses, he added. – Bernama

Source:The Malaysian Insider,http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/cyber-crime-increased-by-127pc-in-2010/

Comment:

Refer to announcement made by CyberSecurity Malaysia (2010), the cybercrime cases was increased from 3,564 cases to 8,090 cases or 127% increased from year 2009 to 2010. We can see that the cybercrime cases were increasing in a rapid trend and I believe the figure will become larger when we take into consideration of some unrecorded cases. It’s good to see that a Cyber999 Help Centre was created by CyberSecurity Malaysia to prevent cybercrime acitivities. Sometime, people do not know what should they do when affected by cybercrime activities, so they will keep quiet and make the situation become worst. In my opinion, government can increase the public awareness of the internet security via creating some IT relevant activities like seminar, competition, briefing, and etc. For example, the challenges of KL GreenHat 2011 will be a very good opportunity to deliver the important of internet security message to public because people can get the chance to get an ideal of how the hacker conduct hacking activities and increase their awareness to prevent from hacked by someone else.

Cybercrimes continue to rise

KUALA LUMPUR: Cybercrime is increasing at an alarming rate worldwide with more than a ­million people becoming victims every single day, according to the Norton Cybercrime Report 2011. The victims of cybercrime also paid dearly with a total loss of US$388bil (RM1.21bil) to ­cybercriminals in 2010. Effendy Ibrahim, director of ­consumer business at Symantec Asia Pacific, said that cybercrimes don’t only cost victims financially but emotionally too. “On average, it takes 10 days for a victim to recover from a ­cybercrime and it can be emotional too ­considering the amount of data they lose,” he said at the launch of Norton 2012, Symantec’s latest cybersecurity solution. However, victims could have saved themselves money and regret as the type of cybercrimes they fell victim to were preventable. The report found that the most common type of cybercrimes are malware, scams and threats ­targeted at mobile devices. However many people tend to underestimate the dangers of online crime thinking that it will happen to everyone else but themselves. The survey found that seven out of 10 adults thought they would more likely be a victim of physical crime rather than an online crime. “This is a lingering attitude users have when they are offline and it gets replicated when they are online,” Effendy said. The report also found that men, particularly those in the generation Y demographic, are most likely to become victims of cybercrimes. “Men spend more time online and do more ‘dangerous’ activities,” Effendy said. The report stated that more men watch adult content, gamble and participate in online dating sites compared to women. “All these are social engineering techniques and it’s quite easy to fall victims to such tactics,” Effendy said.

Local threat landscape

Although Malaysia wasn’t in the list of countries studied in the ­report, national cyberspace police Cybersecurity Malaysia said the findings are representative of the Malaysian threat landscape. “It is the same environment, so whatever that is happening in the world will definitely affect us the same way,” said Cybersecurity Malaysia chief executive officer, Lt Col (Rtd) Prof Datuk Husin Jazri. He said the Malaysian ­cyberthreat landscape is no less alarming with over 10,000 cases reported every month up till August this year. Last year, Cybersecurity Malaysia received over 8,000 reports about cybercrime via its cyber999 hotline. Its Cyber Early Warning System has also detected over 5,000,000 ­security threats up until August. Given the increasing amount of cyberthreats, Husin said there is a need for more proactive ­measures to prevent more Internet users from becoming cybercrime victims and it will take more than reviewing or improving current cybersecurity laws. “Amending laws take time and it is slower than the prevailing problem. We need to intensify education and awareness efforts to educate users on Internet risks,” he said. Husin said Cybersecurity Malaysia is open to the idea of working with security solution providers like Symantec to come up with ­cybersecurity awareness ­programmes. Cybersecurity Malaysia already has a list of home-made ­security tools such as DontPhishMe, DNSwatch and MyPHPiPs that protects users from cybercriminals which can be downloaded for free. It is also working on ­establishing a Cyber Clinic which will offer an extensive list of cybersecurity ­services to computer users. The clinic is expected to be ready before the end of the year.

Source: APEC Digital Oppotunnity Center,http://www.apecdoc.org/site/malaysia/2011/09/26/cybercrimes-continue-to-rise/

Comment:

According to Norton Cybercrime Report 2011, there is around a million of people become victims of cybercrime. It’s a horrible figure and evidence to identify the serious negative impacts brings by the development of internet technology to our life. I do believe that the reason for cybercrime cases to happen is because people are too comfortable with the flexibility and convenience when using internet services. The unawareness of them about their own security when using internet was providing the chance to fraudster to commit illegal activities. Security was the major issue when using internet because most the cybercrime activities could happen within a second or committed when a simple “click” on any button.

The security software or programmes might able to protect internet user and prevent the cybercrime activities. However, I don’t think these security programmes could 100% make sure the security of their user in internet. Some of the user would like to reduce the sensitivity of the programme to low level in order to enjoy faster browsing speed when using internet because the higher level of filtering process will reduce the speed of browsing on website. Another difficulty when using some security programme is users need to manually manage the setting of the programme but most the of people didn’t have enough knowledge to do it.