‘New strategy a must to face cyber threats’
abu dhabi — Challenges of cyber terrorism are both legal and technological and the UAE has been able to introduce new cybercrime laws to fight online criminals, said a UAE cyber security expert.
Dr Mohammed Al Kuwaiti, executive director of the National Electronic Security Authority (Nesa), said cyber terrorists use social media as well as other Internet platforms and programmes to achieve their goals.
“Many applications can easily be downloaded from the Internet and used by terrorists in their activities,” he said.
“These terror groups abuse the Internet by using social media and various sites to spread their extremist propaganda and to attract youngsters into terror activities. They also use malware to target governments in the region.”
Al Kuwaiti was talking about the social, legal and international impact of cyber terrorism at the cyber terrorism conference in Abu Dhabi.
“We need to upgrade our systems and use the latest technologies available for protection from cyber criminals and to find solutions to locate cyber terrorists,” he said.
“Governments and international corporations should take this into account. Society should be protected from terrorists and extremists and governments need to be involved through introducing international legislations.”
He noted that the UAE realised the dangers of electronic threats and managed to introduce new laws to deal with cyber criminals, which have helped in tackling the scourge of violent extremism.
In 2016, the UAE Federal National Council (FNC) issued a draft law that raised a cybercrime from a misdemeanour to a big crime with offenders such as fraudsters, hackers, impersonators using fake accounts and others to be given jail terms of more than three years, depending on the offence.
Under the new law, fines for offenders were also raised from Dh150,000 to Dh500,000 as stipulated in Article 9 of the 2012 Cybercrime Law, to between Dh500,000 and Dh2 million.
“All countries should put forward a strategy and formulate new and tough regulations for tackling and combating cybercrimes committed by terrorists,” said Al Kuwaiti.
George Salama, head of Twitter Mena Public and Government Relations, said cyber terrorism is one of the most dangerous means of terrorism because of the wide use of the Internet.
“The most disturbing thing is that most of the cyber criminals may be invisible to their targets and this is why it requires special measures by authorities to avoid threat to Internet users,” said Salama.
ismail@khaleejtimes.com