[ISN] Cybercrime takes to a new level

Wed Nov 30 01:35:16 EST 2005

http://www.brunei-online.com/bb/wed/nov30b6.htm

November 30, 2005

KOTA KINABALU - The trend in cybercrime has changed from mostly
hacking of organisations' computer system in some four to five years
ago to unauthorised access of their resources like records, database,
information as well as money for monetary gain, Bernama reported.

Head of Internet Crime Investigation Unit of the Royal Malaysia Police
in Bukit Aman, DSP Mahfuz Abdul Majid said the police now received
more serious cases like loss of resources like data, information and
money from some organisations' computer system as well as unauthorised
access to some government department records.

"The number of cases is not many but it is increasing," he told
reporters on the sidelines of a one-day Cyberlaw Workshop, here
Monday.

Among the cases found during their investigation was the unauthorised
access of certain land offices data, possibly through the help of
insiders who helped syndicates to change the ownership of a particular
land title before selling it to another individual.

The syndicates took advantage of the recent undertaking by some land
offices to computerise their data for their own gain with the help of
insiders, he said.

Besides, syndicates with the help of hackers also blackmailed some
website owners for money which were seldom reported as they would
usually ask for RM5,000 to be paid to them to prevent their website
and data from being distorted by the syndicate.

"They usually pay the syndicate instead of reporting it to the
authority as the money they were asking was not that much and it was
less of a hassle," he said.

The increasing number of service providers of the Voice Over Internet
Protocol (VOIP) which allowed users to get a lower calling rate by
communicating through Internet line could also spark some interest
among syndicates and their hackers' partners to tap the line for their
monetary gain.