Be alert to cyber crime

T HE news report “Student jailed for hacking FB” ( The Star, Feb 19), brings home an important and timely message to national authorities and the public, in particular parents and students.

A 26-year-old British software development student was convicted and jailed by the Crown Court in Britain for infiltrating the Facebook website from his bedroom in his parents’ house last year.

The hacking, considered one of the most extensive and serious breaches ever, sparked fears by US authorities that Facebook was the target of a huge industrial espionage that could have cost billions of dollars in losses, compromised millions of users’ information, affected national and corporate security across many countries and put the social networking empire at risk of collapse.

Fortunately, Facebook discovered the security violation in the nick of time through a system check, and although the culprit had tried to erase his digital footprint – clearly demonstrating his sophistication and criminal intent – US FBI agents caught up with him and arrested him in a raid on his house.

While computers and the Internet have made our lives easier in many ways, it is unfortunate that people also use these technologies to take advantage of others.

The question is, are we prepared to do all that’s necessary to prevent, and protect ourselves from, cyber crime?

The cyber networks, including complex and advanced applications, are typically used by those between the ages of 15 and 45 – those whom we might broadly call the young population.

Cyber crime, usually involving young people, in most instances, starts from illegal downloading and sharing of music files; posting malicious news and lewd images; pornography; bullying and harassment; and creating and distributing viruses on other computers or on the Internet.

Soon, these culprits feel the thrill, and possibly seeing the gains they can realise, venture into committing more serious offences such as identity theft, the two most common forms being phishing and pharming.

By luring unsuspecting users to divulge confidential personal information, or by hacking into confidential sites and information, as was the case with the British student, these by now more serious cyber criminals are able to access and use another person’s identity, or gain access to confidential business information and steal huge sums from online bank accounts.

Cyber crime, of course, covers a much wider and more serious scope of criminal activity than these instances cited.

It is, therefore, both essential and smart to promote education focusing on cyber information and cyber ethics, including the dangers of cyber crime, right from an early age among children and young people.

The media, both print and electronic, can play an immensely valuable and necessary role in creating greater awareness of the potential pitfalls in the cyber world.

More importantly, everyone should be alerted to ways and means of protecting themselves against such crimes.

For instance, we can protect ourselves by using anti-virus and spyware blocking software and being careful at all times by checking the URL or Web address of a site to make sure it is legitimate before considering if we should enter personal information. At the national level, there is need for the authorities to have up-to-date state-of-the-art systems and trained personnel to constantly be vigilant and investigate hightech crimes such as computer intrusions, cyber fraud, online sexual exploitation and cyber-based terrorism.

To be on the cutting edge of cyber crime prevention, it is essential to continuously gather and share information and intelligence with public and private sector partners and similar organisations worldwide, especially as such crimes cross national boundaries.

In the final analysis, anyone seeking to gain unlawful and unauthorised access to another’s private information or confidential domain with criminal intent to compel victims to suffer losses, indignity or disrepute, must be thoroughly investigated, convicted according to the evidence and given exemplary punishment, such as the jailing, confiscating all computer equipment and restricting access to the Internet for several years meted out to the youthful British hacker.