Big increase in cyber crimes

Thursday April 28, 2011
By FLORENCE A.SAMY
florenceasamy@thestar.com.my
KUALA LUMPUR: There has been an increase in cyber crimes in Malaysia over the last two years, more than 3,500 of them reported in the first three months of this year.

CyberSecurity Malaysia chief operating officer Zahri Yunos said some 8,000 cases were reported last year and attributed this to the growth in Internet usage and broadband penetration that now stood at 55%.
“The cases have increased exponentially.

“In the first quarter of this year, our Cyber999 security incident help centre handled 3,563 cases, of which 36% or 1,273 cases were related to online fraud, which included phishing and identity theft.

“Phishing sites targeting local banks have also increased, with 400 sites detected for the first quarter of this year compared to 900 last year.

“While the numbers are worrying, we are also happy to see that the public are notifying us when they come across such fraudulent websites or e-mail,” Zahri said at the opening of the Anti-Phishing Working Group's fifth annual international Counter-eCrime Operations Summit here yesterday.

Zahri said industry estimates revealed that the cost of cyber crimes worldwide could easily reach US$1tril (RM2.9tril).

Yesterday, CyberSecurity launched a security browser plug-in called “Don't Phish Me”, which automatically detects fake local banking sites that are out phishing for usernames and passwords in order to illegally withdraw money.

CyberSecurity vice-president (cyber security responsive services) Adli Abd Wahid said the free software would detect the fake sites even without clicking on the suspected e-mail.

It can be downloaded as an add-on for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

The link is also available on www.mycert.org.my.

Zahri also said that CyberSecurity was implementing a safe seal known as “Trustmark” to protect those who conduct online transactions.

He added that a pilot project would begin in July, involving local retail online shopping websites before it was eventually expanded to online banking sites.

source : http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=%2F2011%2F4%2F28%2Fnation%2F8564427&sec=nation