Combating Cybercrime

Due to the importance of the article, Discussion Window is republishing it to increase the level of awareness about combating cybercrime:

Cybercrimes have become among the challenges the state security and police agencies are determined to combat after they have significantly increased due to the increasing use of modern technology in telecommunications, business and financial and banking transactions which provide a ripe ground for cyber-attacks.

Being aware of this growing threat, Abu Dhabi Police has recently formed competent cybercrime fighting teams who receive reports, search websites and block them if they are pornographic in nature. Field teams were also formed to investigate some reports or any incoming information regarding the occurrence of crime that requires more research outside the Office for the Department of Criminal Investigation, Abu Dhabi Police.

The formation of competent cybercrime fighting teams is highly important, especially in light of the following considerations: The first consideration is the increasing use of information technology in public and private institutions as the UAE ranksamong the top countries in the region with regard to the use of the Internet, employment of digital technology and level of electronic readiness, which means that it remains among the highly targeted states by cybercrime.

The results of a cybercrime survey conducted by Symantec/Norton in collaboration with StrategyOne about “viruses” in 42 states published last Septemberrevealed that two persons at least of the UAEfall victims to cybercrime activities per minute due to viruses/malware, online scams, phishing, etc.

The second consideration is related to cybercrimes in the public economic situation, especially that a large percentage of these crimes began to target mainly financial institutions and companies operating throughout the state. Some examples on these crimes are bank fraud using advanced technological means aiming to withdraw money unlawfully through counterfeiting some documents and papers, stealing bank codes or private numbers of customer accounts and credit card data to use them for criminal purposes. These crimes cost the state large amounts of money annually reaching 2.3 billion dirhams during only one year, according to the research conducted by Norton.

However, as much as electronic transactions are increasing, there are formal and semi-formal serious movements that are made to provide a safer environment for e-transactions to enhance the reliability of these transactions. The state always seeks to adopt the latest technologies of electronic applications and the latest mechanisms and solutions for network security in its integrated databases.

The effective security efforts exerted by the security and police agencies leaded by Abu Dhabi Police can address these cybercrimes with high efficiency and professionalism as they adopt techniques that continuously develop and update their abilities and financial and technological resources and upgrade the performance of their personnel. Abu Dhabi Police constantly seeks to adopt the various global technological and electronic developments in the field of combating cybercrime and cybercrime forensics with the aim of establishing experienced personnel in the information security field who will be able to address the differenttypes of cybercrimes, monitor their committers and track them quickly.