Dubai - Dubai police launches action plan 'Bank Foxes' to curb the rising cyber crimes
Published: Sat 21 May 2016, 7:57 PM
A sharp rise in cybercrime or e-Crime has been recorded in the country in the last three years, according to a top police official.
There were 1,011 cybercrimes in 2015, which incurred a financial loss of Dh40.56million against 745 cases in 2014 with a loss of 28million and 302 cases in 2013 with the loss touching Dh3.11million.
Major-General Khamis Mattar Al Mazeina,Commander-in-Chief of the Dubai Police, revealed the figures while delivering a lecture about the new crime and its impacts on the community in the presence of Mohammed Al Murr, the Chairman of Federal National Council (FNC).
He talked about latest smart communication devices and pointed out that criminals are resorting to latest technology nowadays in committing financial crimes.
More data security breaches will happen
Online sophistication of cyber attacks in the UAE indicates that the severity of attack will continue to increase. And it stresses the need to have more measures for cyber security.
The more the number of internet users, the more the cyber breaches in the country as well as across the region.
The UAE, being a 'lucrative' target for the attackers, requires a strong strategy to breakdown sophisticated internet criminals or the "dark net" world of organised crime. Banks and financial institutions are the easy target for these serious attackers obviously for financial gains.
To ensure the data security of the UAE, the Security Division of EMC, RSA gathers all the important people of the industry and prepares improved strategy to fight the cyber crimes and breaches.
Dr. Robert Griffin, Chief Security Architect at RSA, said: "When I started 30 years ago in this industry it was more of an unorganised crime. The single most striking change from then is that people who were experienced engineers were doing it for fun but now it's more serious business. Attackers are more mature, educated and professional now and mostly between the age group of 20 to 60."
"Unfortunately we will go on to see the increase, we cannot stop it completely but with effective and quicker solutions we can definitely decrease the character and impact of disaster."
ankita@khaleejtimes.com
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Al Mazeina said that an action plan is already in place in coordination with telecommunication networks, banks, exchange offices and legal authorities to impose strict action against cyber criminals.
The operation titled "Foxes of Banks" aims at busting gangs operating within Etisalat and banks who leak information of customers to steal money from their accounts.
Al Mazeina gave an outline of their modus operandi during his speech.
According to him, "the foxes" or cunning employees manage to get SIM card replacement of customers when they find their phone number is inactive, then gain access to e-banking details and withdraw money from accounts.
The "Foxes of Bank" operation insists Etisalat should not issue replacement of SIM from its branches at mobile phone shops or to a third party other than the customer.
Also, the Central Bank was urged to coordinate with other banks and make them aware of new techniques used by criminals.
Meanwhile, residents were warned against leaving their passports, banks account details and other personal IDs with strangers.
Al Mazeina added that the gangs install data readers and cameras at ATM machines that can monitor hand movement, as they can copy the pin code and make fake credit card to withdraw the money. He said that all banks were instructed to use anti-copying machines and to put mechanism for monitoring and impose penalities on banks that are not abide by the law to prevent this.
Banks should monitor and do regular checking of ATMs to find if there are any extra devices or chips installed on the machines, he added.
Al Mazeina said that the Dubai police teams have detected 20,000 cases of fake credit card use to buy tickets.
amira@khaleejtimes.com
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