Increasing cyber crime in Africa

Increasing cyber crime in Africa

This national body should be given the mandate to investigate and
prosecute cyber criminals as well as all ICT crimes.

This conclusion was made at the I-Week 2006 ICT workshop where creative
and innovative individuals and teams of ICT origin had discussions on
'the new face of cyber crime - types and tools used' in Accra on
Thursday.

The experts included Mr. C.K Bruce of Cutting Edge, Mr. Techie Mills, an
ICT Consultant, and Mr. Quashie of Regent University, as well as
participants from all walks of life.

The discussions also called for a proper legal framework for the ICT
sector.

They further called for the creation of a department in the law faculty
of universities in Ghana to handle crimes relating to ICT.

The discussions also centered on the fact that the government's drafted
Electronic Transactions Bill intended to protect private rights of
Internet users and owners' websites be facilitated, as many individuals
and corporate entities are suffering from the menace of cyber criminals.

They called on the police to as a matter of urgency establish a
department on cyber crime to help enforce cyber laws to the letter.

In his presentation, a lecturer from Regent University College defined
cyber crime as crimes committed on the Internet using the computer as
either a tool or a targeted victim. "It is very difficult to classify
crimes in general into distinct groups as many crimes evolve on a daily
basis," he confessed.

He said cyber crimes come in various forms; electronic theft, credit
card fraud online auction fraud, pyramid fraud, fraudulent Internet
banking sites, ATM fraud, phishing, cyber terrorism and lottery scam.

The most prevalent cyber crime in the country is the credit card fraud.

Many Ghanaians perpetrate this type of cyber crime. The most typical
example is a group in Nima, a suburb of Accra, called 'Sakawa'. This
group is alleged to be selling stolen credit cards numbers as well as
using same to order for products from the United States and Europe.

These scammers buy or steal credit card and verification numbers from
hotel employees and cashiers of super markets, either in the country or
from abroad.

This situation has dented the reputation of the country leading to the
black listing of Ghana from purchasing items from some commercial sites
in the United States and Europe.

"They then go online, place orders and then work in partnership with
people in the USA or Europe, whose addresses they ask the illegally
purchased goods to be delivered. After delivery, the goods are then sent
to them in Ghana," participants revealed.

At one point, an entire container shipment of compact disks arrived in
the country.

On the global scene, an Internet retailer, CD Universe, refused to pay
$100,000 to a Russian hacker known as Maxim, who stole 300,000 credit
card numbers from their web site. In revenge, the hacker posted some
25,000 credit card details on the web for all to see.

The second most prevalent is online auction fraud, which is the number
one Internet fraud in the US. Goods often do not arrive.

In one case, a Russian fraudster ordered goods using a stolen credit
card, then sold them on an online auction at a low price to United
States citizens, who then wired money to an untraceable Latvian bank.

At the end of 2005, the US Department of Treasury announced that cyber
crime overtook drug trafficking; it cost $180 billion.

While criminal activity via the Internet is still a fairly new
phenomenon, the FBI ranks it just behind stopping terrorism and
counterintelligence on their list of priorities.

Switzerland's federal cyber crime police unit has reported a further
increase in suspected cases of Internet abuse.

They received 7,345 notifications of possible Internet abuse in 2005,
100 more per month than in previous years.

In Russia, the Department 'K' (a department fighting hi-tech crimes)
revealed 4,295 crimes in the sphere of high technologies for the first 6
months of 2004.

The most notorious case discovered by 'computer' investigators involved
7 hackers who stole $21m from credit card holders

Nigerian 419 scam stole the most money off Internet. Americans reported
losing an all-time high of $183 million to Internet fraud in 2005, up
169 percent from $68 million in 2004.

Computer and Internet Security news provided here represents global independent resources. The information represented here is © by the stated author.

Internet Security News Home