Ministry urges members of the public to be wary of cyber-criminals
With the increasing number of different types of online crimes such as hacking, fraud, threat and blackmail, people should be extra careful when conducting any online transaction and take all the necessary precautions at all time when dealing with such things, an awareness webinar by the Ministry of Interior (MoI) has stressed.
The webinar on the Financial and Cyber Crimes and Prevention Methods was held yesterday by the Public Relations Department at the MoI.
It was presented by Lieutenant Ahmed Hamad Hassan al-Thani, awareness officer at the Economic and Cyber Crimes Department at (MoI), who introduced the various related public services of the department.
He pointed out that the department was created in the late 2018 to combat the rising risks of cyber-crimes and cyber-security challenges, which have become more and more common.
The officer also explained the provisions of Law No 14 for 2014 promulgating the Cybercrime Prevention Law and its amendments to cover all the types of crimes that involve the use of Internet and information technology.
Lieutenant Ahmed strongly advised people not to respond to scammers or perpetrators of fraudulent or suspicious activities.
People should immediately block such contacts and disconnect them from all sorts of online communications to avoid potential losses.
Any attempts of blackmailing, threatening or breach of confidentiality, should be reported immediately to the department through Metrash2, e-mail:cccc@ moi.gov.qa, the hotline: 66815757, telephone:2347444, or in person at the department.
The officer explained that the penalties for such crimes according to the law can go up to five years in jail and a fine starting from QR10,000 and up to QR500,000 or any of these, and people can have more information on the legal issues through Qatar legal portal www. almeezan.qa.
The officer said that scammers and fraudulent people often know how to manipulate their targeted victims and know the circumstances of the society where they live, using this information to trap their potential victims.
Lieutenant Ahmed added that the scammers know that people buy online a lot and may ask their victims to share their credit card information, claiming that the victim had won a prize or have to pay a small delivery fee before proceeding forward.
Accordingly, he emphasised that everyone should be responsible for his own cyber-safety and security.
He recommended that people change their e-mail password more often, selecting powerful combinations of letters, figures and symbols, and never share it with anybody.
Further, they should not use one password for all their online accounts and platforms, as in case one of these is hacked, the hacker could have access to all such accounts.
Lieutenant Ahmed also advised people to only buy through trusted and well-known websites, and avoid even opening unknown or untrusted links.
In the meantime, he advised parents to exercise parental control on the content that their children are viewing and the games they play, through the various software and technical tools available for this.
There are laws, including Law No 4 for 2017, to protect the sanctity of private life of the people in Qatar.
Lieutenant Ahmed said that the law prohibits taking pictures or videos of road accident victims and sharing them, in addition to taking photos of people in the public areas without their consent, as there are strict penalties for this.
He stressed that online risks and threats affect both individuals and companies, government and private institutes in various ways to gain illegal and unauthorised access to restricted information and services to misuse them.