The overall crime rate in Singapore is low and the reported numbers for crimes such as murders, rape, rioting, vehicle theft, housebreaking etc... continue to decrease. Indeed, physical crimes against people are on a decrease, however, cyber crimes are on a rise. Reports have indicated that computer attacks can be classified as either active or passive. Active referring to an attack which involve modification of the data stream or attempts to gain unauthorized access to computer and networking systems. Passive, would then mean monitoring others data and eavesdropping on a transmission.
Because infocomm technology has become the nerve centre of Singapore's economy and an intricate componenet of infrastructure, hence Singapore has become a prime target for cyber crimes. As identified in a audit firm, KPMG Singapore, within 3 years from 2004 to 2007, computer related fraud has increased from 19% to 59%.
The top ten types of attacks would be as followed:
- Insider abuse of net access
- Virus
- Laptop/mobile device theft
- Phishing
- Instant messaging misuse
- Denial of service
- Unauthorized access to information
- Bots within the organization
- Theft of customer employee data
- Abuse of wireless network
Don't you think all these sound too difficult and technical? I wonder, how ever is it possible to break through a highly protected computer system such as that of an organization? In order to manipulate computer records, modify programs, engage in software piracy and identity theft etc... it seems that one have to go through endless technical training before one can be equipped with such knowledge to process these crimes. However, it seemed as though majority of cyber criminals are merely young adults and students. How astonishing! Unbelievable? Here are some examples:
1) Fraud: Two undergraduate students convicted of running a credit-card cloning syndicate.
2) Spamming: A 15 years old boy (Primary 6) hacked into a portal system for electronic learning services and sent out 161, 064 e-mail messages to one of his teachers, slowing down the e-mail service provided by the portal system
3) Hacking: A Polytechnic student piggybacked on neighbour's network and first to be charged with unauthorized wireless net access.
4) Harassment: An undergraduate student stole the passwords to several women's Internet Messenger accounts and told one of them that he would distribute doctored photographs of her unless she sent him her naked picture
5) Identity theft: A 27 years old man illegally accessed his former girlfriend's personal e-mail accounts and changed her password.
All in all, it illustrates that most cyber criminals are highly educated and are within the young adult age group. With the rise of cyber crimes, it is really hard to detect criminals. Becuase they do not resemble the stereotypical kind of "bad guys" we learn to identify when we were younger.
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Increase in cyber crime is partly due to convenience I guess. Convenience as in the malicious attacker can just commit crime at a comfortable place in front of a monitor. At the same time it masks the identity of the attacker. Its important that we are equipped with the basic knowledge of internet security and not fall into the trap easily.
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