Continued from page 1
Old-fashioned scam artists have also been targeting
personal computer users. Be wary of online requests for personal information such as credit card members. As use of Internet has expanded, people are finding Internet being used for more traditional offences such as fraud. An example? Send me a cheque and I'll send you a product. You send cheque and product never arrives.
Law enforcement authorities believe system break-ins often go unreported because companies and individuals fear embarrassment or believe reporting an incident could give crackers information to help them break in again. A large number of victims never report they've had a problem. If they recognize it, they don't want to admit it. And can you imagine going up to your nearest police station saying, "Inspector, inspector, somebody hacked into my computer!".
A lot of people committing crime are taking advantage of Internet. The nature of network enables them to go to an area where none of this is against law. Some of this occurs in one thousandth of a second. A typical investigation takes one and a half years. But in one-thousandth of a second, a cracker may have gone through four countries and stolen top-secret information. Annual computer crimes are difficult to estimate – one billion to five billion per year? Nobody has a clue. One problem with tracking crime on Internet is that there's no central clearing house for reporting crimes.
The forgery and counterfeiting of business documents, cheques, entertainment and transportation tickets, stocks and bonds, coupons, licenses, birth certificates, passports, academic transcripts, job applications, and even monetary currency, can now be accomplished with nearly total perfection.
Governments are stealing business secrets through professional espionage agents and even malicious teenage crackers. They are using moles or informants in addition to traditional methods of extracting information from unsuspecting business employees. A wide variety of safeguards are needed to combat these new crimes.
Dr. Adnan Ahmed Qureshi holds a Ph.D. in IT with specialization in the induction of information technology in developing countries. He is the former Editor of Datalog, Computech, ISAsia and columnist for The News International. At present he is working as Senior Industry Analyst and IT Consultant.
