Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.

FAKULTI PENDIDIKAN DAN BAHASA

SEMESTER SEPTEMBER 2011

OUMH 1203

ENGLISH FOR WRITTEN COMMUNICATION

NO. MATRIKULASI NO. KAD PENGNEALAN NO. TELEFON E-MEL PUSAT PEMBELAJARAN

: : : : :

770712125858001 770712-12-5858 0167227779 suzie7775@yahoo.com.my OUM TAWAU

Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

1. INTRODUCTION The definition of computer crime or cybercrime according to R. Moore refers to any crime that involves a computer and a network (Moore, R. (2005) "Cybercrime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime," Cleveland, Mississippi: Anderson Publishing). The computer may have been used in the commission of a crime, or it may be the target whereas net crime refers to criminal exploitation of the internet. Issues surrounding this type of crime have become high-profile, particularly those surrounding cracking, copyright infringement, child pornography, and child grooming. There are also problems of privacy when confidential information is lost or intercepted, lawfully or otherwise. Internationally, both governmental and non-state actors engage in cybercrimes, including espionage, financial theft, and other crossborder crimes. Activity crossing international borders and involving the interests of at least one nation state is sometimes referred to as cyber warfare. The international legal system is attempting to hold actors accountable for their actions through the International Criminal Court (Cyber Warfare And The Crime Of Aggression: The Need For Individual Accountability On Tomorrows Battlefield". Law.duke.edu. Retrieved 2011-11-10). According to Techterms.com, cybercrime is criminal activity done using computers and the Internet. This includes anything from downloading illegal music files to stealing millions of dollars from online bank accounts. Cybercrime also includes non-monetary offenses, such as creating and distributing viruses on other computers or posting confidential business information on the Internet ( http://www.techterms.com/definition/cybercrime) Another definition as quoted webopedia.com stated that cyber crime encompasses any criminal act dealing with computers and networks (called hacking). Additionally, cyber crime also includes traditional crimes conducted through the Internet

Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

(http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/cyber_crime.html).

For

example;

hate

crimes,

telemarketing and Internet fraud, identity theft, and credit card account thefts are considered to be cyber crimes when the illegal activities are committed through the use of a computer and the Internet. Meanwhile, the definition of cybercrimes referred from crime-research.org is the 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. Even in the real world, crimes like rape, murder or theft need not necessarily be separate. However, all cybercrimes involve both the computer and the person behind it as victims, it just depends on which of the two is the main target. Hence, the computer will be looked at as either a target or tool for simplicitys sake. For example, hacking involves attacking the computers information and other resources. It is important to take note that overlapping occurs in many cases and it is impossible to have a perfect classification system (http://www.crimeresearch.org/analytics/702/).

Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

2. CLASSIFICATION OF CYBERCRIMES Cybercrimes can be classified in to 4 major categories as derived from reportcybercrime.com. 1. Cyber crime against Individual 2. Cyber crime Against Property 3. Cyber crime Against Organization 4. Cyber crime Against Society

Cyber crime against Individual Cybercrimes committed against persons include various crimes like transmission of child-pornography, harassment of any one with the use of a computer such as e-mail. The trafficking, distribution, posting, and dissemination of obscene material including pornography and indecent exposure, constitutes one of the most important cybercrimes known today. The potential harm of such a crime to humanity can hardly be amplified. This is one cybercrime which threatens to undermine the growth of the younger generation as also leave irreparable scars and injury on the younger generation, if not controlled. Below are the examples of cybercrimes against individual (http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/02257/more.html).

(i)

Email spoofing - A spoofed email is one in which e-mail header is forged so that mail appears to originate from one source but actually has been sent from another source.

(ii)

Spamming - Spamming means sending multiple copies of unsolicited mails or mass e-mails such as chain letters.

Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

(iii)

Cyber Defamation - This occurs when defamation takes place with the help of computers and / or the Internet. E.g. someone publishes defamatory matter about someone on a website or sends e-mails containing defamatory information.

(iv)

Harassment & Cyber is stalking - Cyber Stalking Means following the moves of an individual's activity over internet. It can be done with the help of many protocols available such at e- mail, chat rooms, user net groups.

Cybercrimes against property Cybercrimes committed against persons include various crimes like transmission of child-pornography, harassment of any one with the use of a computer such as e-mail. The trafficking, distribution, posting, and dissemination of obscene material including pornography and indecent exposure, constitutes one of the most important cybercrimes known today. The potential harm of such a crime to humanity can hardly be amplified. This is one cybercrime which threatens to undermine the growth of the younger generation as also leave irreparable scars and injury on the younger generation, if not controlled

http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/02257/more.html Some of the examples of cybercrimes against property are:(i) Credit Card Fraud (ii) Intellectual Property crimes. These include software piracy, illegal copying of programs, distribution of software copies, copyright infringement, trademarks violations and theft of computer source code. (iii) Internet time theft - The usage of the Internet hours by an unauthorized person which is actually paid by another person.

Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

Cybercrime against organization The third category of Cyber-crimes relate to Cybercrimes against organization and government. Cyber-terrorism is one distinct kind of crime in this category. The growth of internet has shown that the medium of Cyberspace is being used by individuals and groups to threaten the international governments as also to terrorize the citizens of a country. This crime manifests itself into terrorism when an individual "cracks" into a government or military maintained website. Below are the examples of cybercrime against organization

(http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/02257/more.html).

(i) Unauthorized Accessing of Computer - Accessing the computer/network without permission from the owner that it can be of two forms which are changing, deleting data or unauthorized changing of data and the second one is computer voyeur which means the criminal reads or copies confidential or proprietary information, but the data is neither deleted nor changed.

(ii) Denial of Service - When Internet server is flooded with continuous bogus requests so as to denying legitimate users to use the server or to crash the server.

(iii) Virus attack - A computer virus is a computer program that can infect other computer programs by modifying them in such a way as to include a (possibly evolved) copy of it. Viruses can be file infecting or affecting boot sector of the computer.

Worms, unlike viruses do not need the host to attach themselves to.

Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

(iv) E-mail bombing - Sending large numbers of mails to the individual or company or mail servers thereby ultimately resulting into crashing.

(v) Salami Attack - When negligible amounts are removed & accumulated in to something larger. These attacks are used for the commission of financial crimes.

(vi) Logic Bomb - It is an event dependent program, as soon as the designated event occurs, it crashes the computer, release a virus or any other harmful possibilities.

(vii) Trojan Horse - An unauthorized program which functions from inside what seems to be an authorized program, thereby concealing what it is actually doing.

(viii) Data diddling - This kind of attack involves altering raw data just before it is processed by a computer and then changing it back after the processing is completed.

Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

Cybercrimes against society This kind of cybercrime is largely aimed at the society. The growth of computer and internet has shown that some individuals and groups tend to manipulate the medium to spread chaos or to gain benefits from the targeted society. Below are some of the examples of cybercrime against the society.

(i) Forgery - Currency notes, revenue stamps, mark sheets etc can be forged using computers and high quality scanners and printers.

(ii) Cyber Terrorism - The use of computer resources to intimidate or coerce others.

(iii) Web Jacking - Hackers gain access and control over the website of another, even they change the content of website for fulfilling political objective or for money.

Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

3. COMPARISON OF CYBER CRIMES IN MALAYSIA AND USA

Malaysian Computer Crimes Act 1997 (CCA 1997) and the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998, which are the many cyber laws enacted in Malaysia. The punishment may range from 3 years to 10 years imprisonment or a monetary fine of between RM 25,000 to RM150, 000. Note that stiffer penalties will be given if it is found that the guilty party had intention to cause injury when committing the crime. (SANS Institute, 2002).

Strong working relationships between authorities in countries around the world can help to solve cyber crimes cases quickly. The Malaysian Parliament website that was hacked on December 2000 was traced to IP addresses in Brazil and France. The relevant authorities in those countries were contacted for assistance in the investigation. Cyber Security Malaysia is not an enforcement agency but it is an agency under Ministry of Science Technology and Innovation (MOSTI). Cyber Security Malaysia only provide support to enforcement agencies such as police and victims, in ensuring that justice will prevail regardless of the "space" where a particular crime is conducted. Cyber Security Malaysia also assisting in cyber forensics and analysis such as analyzing evidence and providing expert witnesses for relevant cases. In 2008, Cyber Security Malaysia handled a total of 2,123 incidents, more than 100 per cent increase compared with 2007. But that rate was an increase in incidents and it may not correlate with cyber crime rates (http://www.cybersecurity.my/en/media_centre). Malaysia saw the number of reported cyber crimes rise to 5,181 this year (2010) from 2,642 in 2009 (New Straits Times Press, 27October 2010). In the first quarter of 2011, 3,563 incidents were reported to the Cyber999 Security Incident Help Centre and of those, 400 phishing sites targeting Malaysian banks were reported.

(http://www.malaysiandigest.com/news/21919-cybersecurity-malaysia-intensifies-fight-againstcybercrime.html).
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Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

Statistic of selected categories of cyber crimes in Malaysia. Shown chart below are the statistic derived from Cyber Security Malaysia for cyber crime statistic year 2010 in Malaysia.

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Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

Given below are the statistic was derived from Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in collaboration with the Internet Crime Complaint Centre (ic3) for cyber crime statistic year 2010 in USA (http://scamfraudalert.wordpress.com/2010/03/13/fbi-2009-cybercrime-statistics/). 1. Non-delivery Payment/Merchandise 2. FBI-Related Scams 3. Identity Theft 4. Computer Crimes 5. Miscellaneous Fraud 6. Advance Fee Fraud 7. Spam 8. Auction Fraud 9. Credit Card Fraud 10. Overpayment Fraud - 14.4% - 13.2% - 9.8% - 9.1% - 8.6% - 7.6% - 6.9% - 5.9% - 5.3% - 5.3%

Comparison between fraud and spam percentage between in Malaysia and USA. In Malaysia, the percentage of fraudulent is 27.34 % and spam is 15.67 %. While in U.S, fraud percentage reported is 32.7 % and spam 6.9 %. From the data provided, the fraud percentage in U.S is higher compared to Malaysia. While spam percentage is higher in Malaysia compared to U.S. This means, fraud cases or complaints in developed country is higher than non-developed country. However spam cases are a beginning to fraud cases.

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Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

Percentage of cyber crime for the past 11 years in Malaysia. The table of percentage given below is the percentage of cyber crime from the year 2000 to the year 2010 in Malaysia (http://www.mycert.org.my/en/services/statistic/mycert).

Year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 TOTAL

Number Of Complaints Received 503 932 739 4295 15286 835 1372 1038 2123 3564 8090 38777

Percentage % 1.3 (Lowest) 2.4 1.91 11.08 39.42 (Highest) 2.15 3.54 2.68 5.47 9.19 20.86 100

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Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

Percentage of cyber crime for the past 11 years in USA The table of percentage given below is the percentage of cyber crime from the year 2000 to the year 2010 in USA. The statistics derived from Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in collaboration with the Internet Crime Complaint Centre (ic3)

Year 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 TOTAL

Number Of Complaints Received 16838 50412 75064 124515 200449 231493 207492 206884 275984 346655 343809 2078895

Percentage % 0.8 (Lowest) 2.42 3.61 5.99 9.64 11.14 9.98 9.95 13.24 16.67 (Highest) 16.54 100

Comparison between numbers of complaints or cases between Malaysia and U.S In Malaysia, there were 38777 complaints regarding cybercrime whereas in US there were 2078895 complaints. U.S seem higher in comparison to Malaysia in the numbers of complaints because of the difference in the numbers of citizen, numbers of computer or internet users as well as users' awareness regarding cyber crime.

Comparison between percentage of complaints or cases between Malaysia and U.S In Malaysia the highest percentage of complaints as 39.42 % in 2004 and the lowest is 1.3 % in 2000. Meanwhile in U.S, the highest complaints percentage is 16.67 % in 2009 and the lowest is 0.8 % in 2000. Although U.S is higher in the number of complaints regarding cyber crime, but
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Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

the percentage is lower than in Malaysia when referred to the percentage of highest and lowest complaints from the year 2000 to the year 2010. This is due to end users' awareness on cyber crime is higher in U.S than in Malaysia. Secondly, the role played by cyber security agency in U.S is better than Malaysia. Other than that, the lack of cyber crimes research in Malaysia compared to U.S was also taken into consideration. Lastly, the cyber technology in preventing and curbing cyber crime in U.S far more advanced compared to Malaysia

Suggestions to reduce cyber crimes in Malaysia As cybercrimes gaining recognition throughout the country, the Malaysian government should tighten the enforcement of Computer Crime Act 1997 and the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998. The Malaysian government should also establish more cyber-crime analyst and investigation agencies such as Cyber Security Malaysia to take part in preventing cyber crimes in Malaysia. Users of the Internet and any computer devices should be educate on the awareness of the cyber security for instance installing security software in their computer as well as surfing safely will further improve the overall reduction of cybercrime. Eventually, the Malaysian government should increase the employment of cyber-tech related professionals or cyber forensics to improve and defend cyber security in Malaysia.

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Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

4. CONCLUSION To Conclude, the growth of cyber crime in Malaysia, as all over the world, is on the rise and to curb its scope and complexity is the pertinent need today. Cyber space offers a plethora of opportunities for cyber criminals either to cause harm to innocent people, or to make a fast buck at the expense of unsuspecting citizens. Malaysias profile and wealth have risen enormously in the world due to the constructive use of information technology. At the same time, Malaysia is not far left behind in facing cybercrime compared to the U.S and the other countries around the world. In order to fight cybercrimes in Malaysia, steps should be taken into consideration to remedy the situation. Mainly, users of the internet and any computer devices should be educate on the awareness of the cyber security for instance installing security software in their computer as well as surfing safely will further improve the overall reduction of cybercrime. Eventually, the Malaysian government should increase the employment of cyber-tech related professionals and cyber forensics to improve and defend cyber security in Malaysia. Due to the lack of what is called cyber forensics. We know that forensic evidence is important in normal criminal investigations. But the collection and presentation of electronic evidence to prove cyber crimes have posed a challenge to investigation and prosecution agencies and the judiciary. To sum up, Malaysia needs a good combination of laws and technology, in harmony with the laws of other countries and keeping in mind common security standards. In the era of egovernance and e-commerce, a lack of common security standards can create havoc for global trade as well as military matters.

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Cybercrimes in Malaysia and U.S

REFERENCE 1. (Moore, R. (2005) "Cybercrime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime," Cleveland, Mississippi: Anderson Publishing. 2. Cyber Warfare And The Crime Of Aggression: The Need For Individual Accountability On Tomorrows Battlefield". Law.duke.edu. Retrieved 2011-11-10 3. 4. 5. http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/02257/more.html http://scamfraudalert.wordpress.com/2010/03/13/fbi-2009-cybercrime-statistics/ http://www.mycert.org.my/en/services/statistic/mycert

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