Cybercrime on your doorstep
Estate agent warning
At a recent talk to the Institute of Estate Agents of SA (Border). self-acknowledged “super geek” Jason Jordaan warned East London agents to guard against cybercrime, with two propertyrelated incidents in Eastern Cape netting cyber criminals R1.5m in two days.
He cautioned agents that criminals could insert their bank between any money transaction, where buyers were paying sellers.
“They monitor systems, check when money is being paid, and divert it to their accounts. Within minutes, it is untraceably out of the country.
“If you receive an email regarding payments, no matter how authentic it looks, pick up the phone and talk to sender. It’s worth it.
“Cybercrime now dwarfs the illegal drug trade. International syndicates, and there are thousands of highly sophisticated ones, employ highly skilled hackers.
“They have numerous systems to cover their tracks and have little chance of being caught.”
According to Google, illegal drugs will net the dealers a suspected $360bn (R5.17tn)), while cybercrime is worth $6tn (R86.24tn).
“I would not argue with those figures, but what I do know it is growing by the day.”
Jordaan is principal forensic analyst, and owner, of DFIRLABS, based in East London.
He was the national head of cyber forensics before resigning from the police in 2014.
As a consultant his client base spreads from China, Europe and UK, to America. Much of the work is done with top lawenforcement agencies, as well as international companies.
“My biggest local case was in Limpopo province, where a lo- cal hacker took the departments of health, education and safety for quite a few hundred million. It was rewarding that he got a sentence for 30 years, by far the largest in South Africa for cybercrime.
“Unfortunately I do not know any system that is ‘hack proof’. I worked with a bank, one of the country’s biggest. It believed its systems totally safe. It took me a few minutes to get into it.
“Individuals must simply be vigilant. Passwords can be safe, but don’t make them complex. Make them long. It is all but impossible to break a 20-digit password, so go for length.”