Wednesday, 17 December 2014 00:00
-
- {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The Government is stepping up the fight on cyber-attacks and online financial fraud by becoming a signatory to the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, joining the worldwide fight that is costing the global economy an estimated $ 445 billion annually.
The Convention on Cybercrime, also known as the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, is the first international treaty seeking to address internet and computer crime by harmonising national laws, improving investigative techniques, and increasing cooperation among nations.
A handful of countries have ratified it since its inception in 2001; these include the US, Japan, Canada and Australia. Sri Lanka’s influential Cabinet of Ministers has given approval for Sri Lanka to sign the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime. According to Secretary to the President Lalith Weeratunga, this will put Sri Lanka in line with international statutes.
Signing the Convention will allow Sri Lanka to have access to computer systems and networks in other countries and facilitate the gathering of electronic evidence, investigation of cyber laundering, cyber terrorism and other serious crimes.
The Central Bank is also stepping up the fight against cyber-attacks and financial fraud by launching a Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) for banking. The unit, which was launched on Tuesday, will provide cyber security for all of Sri Lanka’s 23 banks on a common platform to handle information security related incidents in the banking and finance sector.
Sri Lanka’s State-run Computer Emergency Readiness Team Coordination Centre (CERT CC) established in 2007 is the main organisation handling protective measures against cyber security. According to CERT CC, approximately 800 cyber-related crimes were reported in the first nine months of 2013. On average they receive about 200 complaints monthly related to cybercrimes.
About 90% of the reported cybercrimes are related to Facebook and the most serious type of crimes reported are in connection with internet banking with organised groups acquiring account details and PIN (Personal Identification Number) of individuals by pretending to be internet bank service providers and defraud money in bank accounts. Recently HSBC released a statement calling on customers not to respond to SMSes or texts due to danger of confidential information and being used for fraud.
The situation is not helped by Sri Lanka having one of the world’s worst records for credit card fraud. The cost of cybercrime for the global economy has been estimated at $ 445 billion annually. Cyber espionage and stealing individuals’ personal information is believed to have affected more than 800 million people during 2013, according to a report released last month by internet security company McAfee. The world’s biggest economies bore the brunt of the losses, the research found, with the toll on the United States, China, Japan and Germany reaching $ 200 billion a year in total. Losses connected to personal information, such as stolen credit card data, was put at up to $ 150 billion.
About 40 million people in the United States, roughly 15% of the population, has had personal information stolen by hackers, it said, while high-profile breaches affected 54 million people in Turkey, 16 million in Germany and more than 20 million in China, making the fight to offer protection a crucial but challenging one.
