Avoid falling prey to cyber crimes
KOTA KINABALU: “A single mother handed over her savings amounting to six figures to the man she had only met on the Internet despite her children advising her against doing so,” said a senior police officer to the dismayed crowd at a forum entitled ‘Challenges Facing The Future Cyberspace’ held at Universiti Malaysia Sabah in conjunction with Borneo Cyber Security Challenge 2017 sometime in April.
The crowd found it hard to believe that people could be so naive and gullible like pointed out by Commercial Crime Department Deputy Director ACP Ahmad Nordin Ismail at the event. Yet the truth is, despite of the forums held to create awareness on cyber risks and the number of scams highlighted by the police and media, day in day out more people end up victims to people they have never met in person but through the Internet.
Ahmad Nordin points out Internet crimes are not something new. They are the real world crimes that have existed since time immemorial, only that now the perpetrators have taken them to the cyber realm.
The modus operandi in the cyber realm is very much similar to the crimes committed in the real world –cheating, stealing, and even rape and murder. The criminals just added a new twist to their ways by adopting the latest technology in looking for victims.
Their work is made easier as they have easy access to almost any netizen and they could easily camouflage their true identities behind the cyber screen. Hence, love scams, e-commerce and financial fraud, pornography, false news and violation of copyright have become prevalent online.
Social media websites like Facebook, Instagram and Bigo Live and messenger apps like Whatsapp, WeChat and Telegram provide unlimited access to potential victims. Often women end up the easy prey to charlatans, confidence tricksters, casanova, cheats and even sexual predators. Even after the forum in April, there are no signs that the number of cyber crimes has yet to abate.
No thanks to the ignorance and indifference harboured by many Malaysians. The number of cyber crime cases and loses keep rising annually. In 2014, there were 1,026 cases of African Love Scam with losses totaling RM 52.87 million and in 2016 the number rose to 2,489 cases and the loses amounted to RM98.9 million. The victims have never met their so called lovers face to face yet easily parted with their money. The cyber criminals have done their homework well. The have identified all the loopholes in the system and the vulnerabilities of the people before making their move. Some syndicates have even made Malaysia as their nerve centre for their clandestine operations across the world.
“The syndicates find Malaysia a conducive location for their activities especially looking at the fact Malaysia has good telecommunication system and Internet connectivity that facilitates the syndicate’s operations,” explained Ahmad Nordin.
One of the scams perpetrated by an international syndicate is the‘Macau Scam’ that was first detected in 2012 in Sabah with victims losing 10 billion Renmibi (RM6 billion).
The scam reappeared this May this year and the police busted their operations in Shah Alam, Selangor. A total of 20 Chinese nationals and five Taiwanese were arrested for defrauding the victims.
Using the Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP), the syndicate members disguised themselves as police or Bank Negara officers claiming that the victims have been involved in illegal transactions and had to pay up if they were to avoid action.
Malaysians are easy prey for cyber criminals especially looking at the fact the country has got high number of netizens.
CMC’s Head of Department for Outreach Implementation, K Juslly Elis pointed out Internet users in Malaysia have exceeded 24.1 million, representing almost two thirds of the country’s population of 31.7 million. For an average Malaysian, Internet is close to one’s heart, with Juslly pointing out 97 percent of the social media users in Malaysia own Facebook accounts with 18 million users active in social media daily. On the average, the social media users own four social media accounts.
On the gadgets used to surf the Internet, 90.7 percent of them used smartphones with the use of Internet mainly for text communication (92.7 percent), search information (90.1 percent) and social media (80 percent).
“However, in the event a cyber crime occurs, the Internet users have themselves to blame. They have made themselves vulnerable by sharing sensitive information like their location, telephone number, mykad number and other personal information making them the easy prey for cyber criminals.
Hence, self regulation by netizens is crucial where they have to understand and adhere to the laws and ethics relating to the use of the Internet technology.