TheNewsGuru

Tag: Cybercrime

  • Cybercrime costs $600 billion annually – McAfee

    Fuelled by growing sophistication of hackers and proliferation of criminal marketplaces and cryptocurrencies, the annual cost of cybercrime has hit $600 billion worldwide, researchers said Wednesday.

    A report by the security firm McAfee with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies found theft of intellectual property represents about one-fourth of the cost of cybercrime in 2017, and that other attacks such as those involving ransomware are growing at a fast pace.

    Russia, North Korea, and Iran are the main sources of hackers targeting financial institutions, while China is the most active in cyber espionage, the report found.

    Criminals are using cutting-edge technologies including artificial intelligence and encryption for attacks in cyberspace, with anonymity preserved by using Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, the researchers said.

    “We are seeing the bad actor community taking advantage of the innovation in the technology industry,” Steve Grobman, chief technology officer for McAfee, told a news conference in Washington.

    Even though these technologies can offer “tremendous value” when used for legitimate purposes, they also can be adopted by criminals to hide their tracks, Grobman said.

    The McAfee-CSIS report suggested cybercrime costs were rising from a 2014 estimate of $445 billion.

    “We were hoping it would flatten, but we didn’t see that,” said CSIS vice president James Lewis.

    One of the reasons for the increase, according to Lewis, is that “there’s a whole ‘dark web’ phenomenon that creates a safe space for criminals to operate”.

    These dark web marketplaces, the report noted, allow hackers and other criminals to offer their services or sell tools which can be used for attacks, and to sell stolen credit card numbers or other valuable data.

    Lewis said meanwhile the geopolitical risks of cybercrime are a key element in these attacks.

    “Our research bore out the fact that Russia is the leader in cybercrime, reflecting the skill of its hacker community and its disdain for western law enforcement,” Lewis said.

    “North Korea is second in line, as the nation uses cryptocurrency theft to help fund its regime, and we’re now seeing an expanding number of cybercrime centres, including not only North Korea but also Brazil, India and Vietnam,” he added.

    The report said there is often a connection between governments and the cybercrime community.

    It noted that in a massive attack against US-based Yahoo, “one of the cybercriminals who hacked Yahoo at the behest of Russian intelligence services… also used the stolen data for spam and credit card fraud for personal benefit”.

    The study did not attempt to measure the cost of all malicious activity on the Internet, but focused on the loss of proprietary business data, online fraud and financial crimes, manipulation directed toward publicly traded companies, cyber insurance and reputational damage.

    The global research report comes days after the White House released a report showing cyber-attacks cost the United States between $57 billion and $109 billion in 2016, while warning of a “spillover” effect for the broader economy if certain sectors are hit.

     

  • TNG Unscripted: Why do we celebrate CyberCrime [YahooYahoo] in Nigeria?

    TNG Unscripted: Why do we celebrate CyberCrime [YahooYahoo] in Nigeria?

  • FBI’s IC3 reports $1.3 billion heist

    Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Internet Crime Complaint Center, IC3 has reported a heist of about $1.3 billion by cybercriminals in the United States of America (USA) only, saying it also received about 300,000 complaints in 2016.

    The 2016 Internet Crime Report published on Thursday, the FBI’s cybercrime office said all the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received a total of 298,728 complaints concerning malicious activity attributed to about $1.33 billion in losses.

    TheNewsGuru reports the FBI is the US lead federal agency for investigating cyber attacks by criminals, overseas adversaries and terrorists.

    “With each passing day, cyber intrusions are becoming more sophisticated, dangerous and common.

    “We continue to transform and develop in order to address the persistent and evolving cyber threats we face,” said Scott Smith, assistant director of the bureau’s cyber division.

    The FBI report discloses that the most profitable type of cybercrime reported last year, a scam commonly known as “Business Email Compromise,” or “BEC”, earned fraudsters over $360.5 million from about 12,000 victims.

    Business Email Compromise or BEC scams are usually carried out by tricking targets into conducting unauthorized bank transfers and are typically levelled against corporations that regularly perform international transactions, the report stated.

    The IC3 stated that it only began receiving complaints about BEC in 2010, but included it last year’s report at the top of its list of “hot topics for 2015”.

    The IC3 said it received 2,673 complaints involving ransomware in 2016 totalling over $2.4 million in losses.

    The IC3 was established in 2000 and has since received a total of over 1.4 million complaints totalling more than $4.6 billion in reported losses, according to this year’s report.

    “Be aware of what you are clicking on and also what you’re posting on social media. Always lock down your social media accounts as much as possible,” IC3 Unit Chief, Donna Gregory Gregory advised on combating cybercrime.

    “Try to use two factor authentication, and use safe passwords or things more difficult to guess. The tougher the password, the harder it is for someone to crack,” Gregory added.

     

     

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  • We’ll support Nigeria in fighting cybercrime, financial fraud – United States

    We’ll support Nigeria in fighting cybercrime, financial fraud – United States

    The United States on Wednesday pledged to support Nigeria in the fight against cybercrime and financial fraud.

    A statement issued by the U.S. Embassy quoted Amb. Stuart Symington, as saying this at the Second Annual Conference on Combatting Financial Fraud, Cybercrime, and Cross-Border Crimes on Tuesday.

    The conference with the theme `U.S.-Nigerian cooperation in combating cybercrime and financial fraud,’ was organised by the Federal Ministry of Justice and the National Information Technology Development Agency.

    Symington said: “there is not a country in the world that is kept secure day and night, year after year by anything other than the people of that country.

    “They are to national security what every user of a computer is to internet security, they are the critical link.”

    The ambassador expressed the need to set up appropriate legal frameworks, deploy computer emergency response teams in critical sectors, and develop national and international tools that will work to combat cybercrime.

    He explained the internet has leveled the playing field for all citizens, because anyone in the world can compete with, influence, and change what the entire world is doing.

    Citing the recent WannaCry worldwide attack, he said “whatever challenges Nigeria is facing, the United States and the global community are confronting those challenges as well”.

    He emphasised the need for an immediate response and robust coordination between nations in answer to frequent cyber-attacks and increasingly sophisticated transnational criminal networks.

    “The U.S. has partnered with the Nigerian government to combat fraud, financial crimes, money laundering, cybercrime, and cross-border crimes including drug, human, and wildlife trafficking.

    `The two countries also continue to work to counter these threats, strengthen information sharing, and develop strategies to work together to protect citizens, resources, and financial networks from dangerous criminal attacks,” he said.

    NAN reports that Mr Abubakar Malami, SAN, Minister of Justice said Nigeria was proactively taking steps to ensure that the Cyber Crime Act of 2015 was implemented.

    Representing Malami, Mrs Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu, Special Adviser to the President on Justice Reforms, said the Ministry of Justice was ensuring that cyber crime perpetrators were prosecuted for obstructing national security.

    “Our intention is to ensure that Nigeria is proactively implementing our Cyber Crime Act of 2015 and also to ensure that we are implementing the Advanced Fee Fraud Act of 2007.

    “We want to ensure that we are looking at cross border crimes that can affect the national security of Nigeria and we are taking proactive steps in that direction.

    He said that Nigeria was in a critical situation and if nothing was done to tackle cyber crime issues in the government and across private sector, the country might become subject to gruesome cyber attacks.

     

     

    NAN

  • Nigeria is taking steps to implement cyber crime act, says AGF

    Nigeria is taking steps to implement cyber crime act, says AGF

    Justice Walter Onnoghen, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) on Tuesday said Nigeria was proactively taking steps to ensure that the Cyber Crime Act of 2015 was implemented.

    Onnoghen said this at the 2nd Annual Conference on Financial Fraud and Cyber Crime in Abuja.

    The conference was organised by the Federal Ministry of Justice, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) in collaboration with Organised Private Sector (OPS).

    Representing Onnoghen, Mrs Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu, Special Adviser to the President on Justice Reforms, said the Ministry of Justice was ensuring that cyber crime perpetrators were prosecuted for obstructing national security.

    “Our intention is to ensure that Nigeria is proactively implementing our Cyber Crime Act of 2015 and also to ensure that we are implementing the Advanced Fee Fraud Act of 2007.

    “We want to ensure that we are looking at cross border crimes that can affect the national security of Nigeria and we are taking proactive steps in that direction.

    He said that Nigeria was in a critical situation and if nothing was done to tackle cyber crime issues in the government and across private sector, the country might become subject to gruesome cyber attacks.

    “At that point it will be difficult for us to come out from it,” he said.

    According to him, trainings and collaborations are ongoing among ministries, departments and agencies of government to ensure that officers are positioned to forestall cyber crime in their offices.

    “A lot of work is going on both from the office of the National Security Adviser where rapid response team is working closely with NITDA.

    Onnoghen said that work was also going on with the Nigeria Police Force, Economic Financial Crimes Commission as well as the Department of State Security Services.

    “There is an ongoing coordination platform called the Cyber Crime Advisory Committee working on developing policies and standards against cyber attack on Nigeria.

    He said that the working group was developing training programmes for law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and the financial sector.

    “We are taking steps to prevent cyber crime from becoming a problem and to prevent Nigeria from being vulnerable from such attacks,” Onnoghen said.

    Mr Chris Okeke, the Director, Cyber Security NITDA, said that the country adopting the Cyber Crime Act was a step in the right direction to ensure cyber protection.

    Okeke, however, said that before the adoption of the Act, the agency was working to protect the country’s government information system.

    “Passing the Cyber Crime into law is a great improvement and a step in the right direction, it is the way forward.

    “With the act, it is a platform and the foundation for curbing cyber crime in the country. The nation is making effort and agencies are collaborating with NITDA to ensure the effective implementation of the act.

    “You cannot introduce a software solution without ensuring that the software solution has adequate authentication, protection so that hackers don’t get access to it.

    He said that before the passage of the act, NITDA had been doing a lot to ensure that the comprehensive protections of IT solution deployed into the country were working.

    Mr Ayo Omotade, representing the OPS said that financial fraud and cyber crime was difficult to curb in the country due to lack of adequate manpower.

    Omotade said that the country needed to engage young people in cyber space education to equip more hands for its monitoring.

    “Financial fraud and cyber crimes are crimes perpetuated easily because the cyber space is difficult to monitor.

    “We have so many challenges handling the cyber space because we don’t have enough skilled manpower in the country and we are going into IT in every aspect of our lives.

    “The challenges are there and only few people can tackle them,” he said.

    According to him, Nigeria has a long way to go in curtailing cyber crime, but the very sure way to handle it is capacity development right from an early age.

    He said this should be imbibed in the school curriculum and in different levels of education, primary, secondary and tertiary education.

    “Cyber crime education needs to come to all these spaces and counter measures should be adopted,” Omotade said.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Cyber Crime Act was signed into law by former President Goodluck Jonathan on May 2015.

    The Act is to provide definitive legal machinery in Nigeria to provide for the tackling of the pervasive problem of cyber crime from all quarters both from the Information Communications Technology (ICT) sector and the legal community.

  • Cybercrimes: Nigeria loses N127b yearly

    Cybercrimes: Nigeria loses N127b yearly

    A cyber security group, Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria (CSEAN) has estimated that Nigeria loses about N127 billion to cybercrimes yearly.

    It said several cases of cyber crime activities in the country, many of which have resulted in financial losses by individuals and organisations, had been widely unreported.

    The CSEAN said the country might face even greater odds in cybersecurity threats this year.

    It, however, identified five cyber crimes that will dominate Nigeria this year based on the current trends as CEO e-mail scam, ransomware, online-assisted kidnapping, cyber bullying and online impersonation.

    CSEAN President, Remi Afon, who said that the year 2017 would witness more ransomware than ever seen before in Nigeria, stated that with the rise of ransomware-as-a-service, cyber criminals could now purchase a user-friendly kit they could deploy with little or no cyber know-how from the dark web.

    He described ransomware as a type of malware that infects a machine when a user clicks on a seemingly legitimate link and unknowingly downloads a malicious file. The virus will then encrypt the user’s files, share drives and servers, leaving them inaccessible unless the victim pays for the decryption key usually in crypto currency.

    He said: “That kidnapping is on the rise in Nigeria is no news. What many people don’t know is that kidnappers are being assisted by their victims’ social media online activities and geolocation data on their smartphones. Geolocation data is information that can be used to identify an electronic device’s physical location.”

    According to him, using smartphones’ built-in Global Positioning System (GPS) functionality allows location-based services (or geo-location) to locate and publish information about smartphone owners’ whereabouts.

    He also identified online impersonation, which he categorised into two, as another top cyber crime to watch out for in 2017. He said while the first category impersonates politicians and religious leaders on social media by creating fake profiles with the aim of scamming their victims, the second usually creates fake profiles with attractive fake pictures so they can engage in what is called ‘romance scam’.

    Afon stressed that cyber criminals were mainly interested in targeting foreigners, claiming they were in love with them and establishing a love relation to be able to swindle them.

  • S-Court throws gavel at Facebook, others for sexual offence, cybercrime videos

    S-Court throws gavel at Facebook, others for sexual offence, cybercrime videos

    The Supreme Court of India on Monday sought responses from three Internet search engines and social networking site, Facebook, on a plea that sought curbs on sharing of videos related to sexual offences and cybercrime.

    A bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit sought responses from Google India, Yahoo India, Microsoft Corporation (India) Ltd. and Facebook by January 9 on NGO Prajwala’s plea seeking a defined place where one could report such rape videos and seek their blocking.

    The court’s notices for response came during the course of hearing of a letter by Hyderabad-based non-governmental organization Prajwala along with two rape videos. The two videos submitted in a pen drive showed a man raping a woman and another man filming it.

    The NGO’s lawyer Aparna Bhat said videos of sexual offences are shot and posted online, and pleaded for court directions to them to take steps to curb cybercrime.

    As the court sought responses on the plea, Additional Solicitor General, Maninder Singh, told the bench about the steps taken by the government and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to curb cybercrime.

    The CBI happens to be the nodal agency to deal with the cases of cybercrime.

    The government said this in response to an August 28 direction by the top court, asking the Information Technology Ministry about the way it could assist in reporting and blocking videos of rape under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, which are in circulation on social networking websites.

    As ASG Maninder Singh said that a debate is on in the country and abroad on making public the identity of sexual offender, the court said the identity of an alleged rape offender should not be made public merely on the registration of an offence but only after conviction.

    The court said if a person gets acquitted even then he would suffer damage to his image because of prior disclosure of his identity. “It will tarnish the image of a person, (even) if he is acquitted in the sexual offence case,” the bench said.

    The bench said if a person is acquitted of a sexual offence, the CBI will not investigate him for the cybercrime aspect of the offence.

    Pointing to National Crime Record Bureau statistics on a sharp rise in cases of sexual violence against children, the apex court asked the Centre to include in the list of measures for curbing crimes against women, the steps to protect children from sexual violence.

    The NGO’s co-founder Sunitha Krishnan is engaged in the rescue and rehabilitation of victims of trafficking for sex trade.