Keep safe from cyber crime

Representatives from Royal Oman Police (ROP), Public Prosecution personnel, and some legal professionals got insight into different aspects of cyber crime at a meeting in Salalah on Sunday. The meeting was held under the auspices of Hussein bin Ali al Hilali, AttorneyGeneral of Oman.

Nasr Khamis al Sawaai, Public Prosecutor, dwelt upon various rules pertaining to cyber security, how to make a case and proceed with investigation. He gave an informative presentation on ‘Information and methods of investigation of cyber crimes.’

He threw light on some technical sides of the cyber crimes done against people, intellectual property, and the government. He tried to convince the gathering about the nature of the crimes and the motives behind them.

Al Sawaai also spoke about the Information Technology Crimes Act and the threat of the perpetrators reach on personal data and electronic information, misuse of the means of information technology, fraud and falsifying information, content crimes, abuse of financial cards and extortion mail.

He advised to be cautious while attending a stranger’s call and avoid responding to spam mails etc that promise ‘huge rewards” by following their lines.

He also cautioned against divulging personal information to unknown callers. “Equally dangerous are the seductive mails and pictures that carry malware to reach to someone’s personal data,” he said.

Al Sawaai also listed a number of Do’s and Don’ts while dealing with such cases as he suggested how to collect evidences in a bid to establishing strong case against the perpetrators of cyber crime.

The advocates were exhorted to go prepared to the courts while representing the cases and present the points nicely and pin pointedly to establish the case.

In his comments to Observer, Al Sawaai, said the size of cyber crime in Oman was not very big in a closely knit cyber world you cannot walk alone and many things are interdependent — country to country, region to region.

“So the best way is to be prepared to check such crimes and if at all happened, to investigate and reach to the bottom of the crime,” he said.

For this, he called for a good level of awareness both at the common man’s level and at the level of the investigators.