Dr. K. Jaishankar Senior Assistant Professor Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Manonmaniam Sundaranar University Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India
Executive Director – Centre for Cyber Victim Counselling
Cybercrime - victimizing nations in Asia and the
Middle East.
Ordinary individuals to Governments - struggle
hard in protection – Legal insufficiency
Spurt of cyber crime in the past 5 years - cyber
crime - second most reported economic crime in the Middle East.
In 2012 and 2013 - reported cyber crimes in the
financial services sector across the region, in particular in the UAE, Oman and Lebanon.
Norton (2013) cites various reasons for growing
cyber crime in Asia - lack of awareness, lack of reporting behavior, involvement in deceitful activities, and lack of cyber security components in companies and governments.
This presentation will explore the current scenario
of cyber crime, the role of legal systems in managing, the efforts of individuals and private parties in mitigating cyber crime and will introspect on the future of cyber crime in the Asian and Middle East regions.
Asia-Pacific enterprises are expected to spend $230
billion to deal with cyber security breaches in 2014 -the highest for any region - according to a study conducted by International data corporation and the National University of Singapore (Marsh 2014).
Increase in ecommerce - increasing reliance on IT to
derive cost efficiencies, the risk exposure - increased.
Asian countries also accounted for 8 of the top -10
countries most vulnerable to cybercrime, (2013 Security Threat Report published by Cyber Security Company Sophos (Marsh 2014).
Select Five Asian Countries for this presentation: China, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan
China – China takes the top spot in terms of
Internet users. China has almost twice (1.8x) as many Internet users as the United States. However, internet penetration is lesser.
China ranked top in terms of malicious activities in
the region, followed by the South Korea, India, Taiwan and Japan (see also Symantec 2011).
As to the origin of attacks targeting the region,
-most attacks came from the USA, followed by China, South Korea and Japan (Symantec 2009).
Online crimes such as fraud and personal
information theft have cost China 289 billion yuan (US$46.4 billion) in 2012.
Chinese cybercrime underground activity doubled
between 2012 and 2013 (Trend micro, 2014)
Topping the list of online crimes, - fraud,
prostitution, pyramid selling and personal
information theft.
700,000 - victims of cybercrime each day – Lack of
Policing - China has one of the world's largest team
of hackers - But it lags behind fighting cybercrime
Laws - The PRC Tort Liability Law, The criminal Law
and its amendment VII, China Criminal Procedure Law
No strong evidence law - Judicial practice goes ahead
of criminal procedure law – No foreign agreement for cooperation.
China passed a regulation at the end of 2012 to
strengthen information protection, a comprehensive law on Internet crimes is still badly needed.
India is the fourth largest country in terms of
Internet users in spite of having an Internet penetration of a measly 6.9%.
India has emerged as the ransomware capital of
Asia Pacific with 11 percent of cybervictims falling to this form of virtual extortion, while average cost per victim has increased by 8 percent from last year (Symantec's 2013 Norton Report).
India is among top five countries for the highest
Cybercrime cost India US$4 billion in 2013.
Policing – CERT - Separate Cyber crime police
station and cells. Cyber Security curricula.
No Exclusive law - The IT Act, 2000 as amended by
The IT (Amendment) Act, 2008 has a separate chapter XI entitled “Offences” – 2013 Criminal Amendment Act to protect women – stalking -Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012
Japan is one of four non-European signatories to
the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime.
Cybercrime Convention into force –1 Nov. 2012 Cyber Security efforts – Excellent
With an average annual growth rate of 17%, the
Internet-using population has been growing much faster than the total population in Taiwan.
It should be noted that the numbers of cybercrime
cases and suspects, with annual growth rates over 170%, have been increasing much faster than even the Internet population and reached a record high.
The Taiwan parliament in 1997 and 2003 amended
To fight cybercrime, the Taiwan government - set up
the Cybercrime Prevention and Fighting Center.
China and Taiwan rank as the top two countries in
terms of malicious computer activity.
Reports have also shown that most hacking into
Taiwanese computer systems is initiated from within China and most hacking into Chinese systems originates within Taiwan.
Lack of cooperation between two countries in
mitigation of cybercrimes - Informal Police
South Korea - The ITU, International Telecommunication
Union, put South Korea in the first place of Digital Opportunity Index – highest developed network
South Korea has seen over 100,000 cases of cybercrime
every year since 2010.
The number of cybercrimes - 108,223 in 2012, 116,961
in 2011 and 122,902 in 2010 -an average of 296 cyberattacks by unidentified hackers per day in 2012.
South Korea ranks 4th for hosting phishing Web sites
Law - "Act on Promotion of Information and Communication
Social networking has exploded in the Middle East
The Middle East is a major target and source of cyber
crime. Saudi Arabia is the leading source and target country in the region.
The region includes some of the most “phished”
countries in the world - These “religious scams” have involved sending email attachments with a payload to destroy the infrastructure of the receiving computer.
Select Five Middle East Countries for this
presentation: Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and
In Kuwait today, there are approximately 1.1 million
Internet users, almost 50 percent of the population, connecting to the internet for personal or business use - There are almost 900,000 Facebook users in Kuwait (Feras Al-Oqlah, 2014).
Raise of Advanced Persistent Threats – Online
Banking vulnerability - Spam in Kuwait is 72.4 percent as per the Symantec’s Intelligence Report (2012) out of which 4 percent is identified as Malware and Phishing Emails, the remaining -advertising emails.
A special department to combat cyber crimes was
established by the Ministry of Interior (MoI) in 2008.
By 2009, the Security Information Department of the
MoI was working closely with Interpol to prosecute online offenses.
MOI warns individuals – Interpol & UK collaboration
Cyber Security capabilities – Governments’
department fully equipped with the latest technology – Khanderi, Head of computer crime
Oman tops in malware victimization – Bank of Oman –
target of attack.
Ransomware - Cyber criminals - using fake logos of
the Royal Oman Police (ROP) and the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).
Oman has a cybercrime law (2011) – The Law defines each
form of cybercrime and prescribes a penalty which ranges from a fine to imprisonment from a month to fifteen years.
CERT Cyber capabilities Private sector approaches
-India's Paladion to set up cybercrime monitoring hub in Oman
Hackers have targeted Qatar in multiple attacks over
the last two years, including one incident that shut down the corporate computer systems and website of RasGas, - QCert – Collaboration with UK to fight Cybercrime.
Very Recently passed Cyberlaw - The wide-ranging
law, which specifies fines and jail time for various offenses, also covers acts that are already illegal in Qatar, including hacking into government networks, distributing child pornography and online fraud.
A law that is criticized by Human rights group –
Lack of separate Laws
Lack of coordination among various criminal
justice agencies – Insular nature of CJS
Lack of Training for Judges and Police officials
Lack of awareness creating mechanisms
Content
crimes:
differences
between
democratic and authoritarian regimes
No
importance
given
to
interpersonal
cybercrimes
No standard cyber law making body
Cyber legislations – lack of uniformity – Some
countries have no laws
Police
officials
capabilities
/
Lack
of
collaborations between various stakeholders
Lack of Education and awareness campaigns
International Treaties for interpersonal crimes in
cyberspace.
Awareness campaigns
Police and Judicial Training
NGO’s to work with governments
Reducing insular nature and allowing private
agencies to involve in government cyber security processes.
Of the 10 countries analyzed, only few show great
promise in the mitigation of cyber crime by cyber security process and cyber laws.
As more and more people start using Internet, there will
be a raise in cyber crimes compared to previous years.
Countries should get equipped to the stop the
unbridled growth of cyber crimes by more training and
improving technical, legal and human resource
capabilities.
International cooperation and collaboration with some
Dr. K. Jaishankar Senior Assistant Professor Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice
Manonmaniam Sundaranar University Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu, India
Editor-in-Chief – International Journal of Cyber Criminology
