Heavy protection system vital:

Cyber crimes hit new high

by Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana

Sri Lanka has experienced crime throughout history from assault to murder, theft, robbery, physical abuse, smuggling and swindling as well as organised crime. Law enforcing authorities like the police have mastered these crimes and are well-organised, compared to many other countries in the region. They can face and solve these crimes and to bring the culprits to book because of the battle hardened experience they received during the past three decades. However, with the advancement of technology, crimes have also taken a twist posing a new challenge to the authorities responsible for maintaining law and order.

Cyber crime or crimes committed using computers or through the internet or related to Information Technology may have been something novel and distant to many of us to date except to a few professionals in the field.

Hacking a computer or a network or in other words illegally entering a restricted computerised database, a website or a shared computer system of a state or private organisation with malicious intent maybe new to us although it has been happening in developed parts of the globe.

Many of us have seen modern films based on how people commit crimes or offensive activity through the internet. An experienced computer genius with a simple laptop operating from a hideout of one corner of the world can gain access to a highly secured sophisticated data network of a renowned espionage service in one of the super powers or somebody good at numbers and figures can enter into a multi-billion dollar bank account of a rich tycoon and drain the funds to a secret account in a manner of stealing or perhaps one state trying to deactivate sophisticated military armaments and nuclear missile system of a rival state were some of the hot themes on which movies are being produced these days.

One would think whether this really happens across the world today or whether films are just made out of fictional themes. Sadly the answer to this is in thec affirmative. Such things do really happen in the world today and the victims will not only be the developed western countries.

Experts in the field of Information Technology have forecasted that even developing countries in the Asian region could be victimised by these hackers or cyber crimes in the future.

It is a simple task nowadays for an IT literate person to send a malicious software in the form of a virus to a leading a company and cripple its entire data sharing system for hours, which could result in losing millions of rupees of funds or assets.

The law enforcing experts have found that cyber crimes were becoming the gravest crimes of all time. It is proved that the most powerful person in today’s world is not the richest country or the country armed with weapons.

An IT wizard with exemplary skill and ambition could be far more dangerous than any other terrorist in the world if used in the wrong way. It is not a secret that leading Mafia gangs in the world are hiring these top notch hackers or IT experts to fulfil their targets.

It is estimated that the market of cyber crime starts from 20billion US dollars and runs upto 100 billion USD. This alone could make it the most highest paid crime in the world. Anyone can simply buy a destructive virus from the underworld Mafia backed hacker for about 200 to 500 US dollars that could be used against an important company or organisation to paralyse its operations for hours. Some countries even go upto the extent of creating viruses against its rival countries to intercept its warfare.

In 2010 a computer worm named Stuxnet was discovered that had reportedly been created by the USA and Israel to infiltrate and attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Many started to worry after the revelation of Edward Snowden, an IT expert and former CIA/NSA employee of the top secret mass surveillance programs conducted by the US and UK governments, to the media. That the sort of online programs operated by National Security Agency to monitor the secrets of the other countries and organisations and high profile individuals. It was reported in the foreign media that access to personal information through social media websites and popular search engines and email hosts were required by certain intelligence services during the past few years. The NSA PRISM program was one such program that paid leading companies like Google and Apple millions of dollars to retrieve their data.

Even some developed countries maintain separate armies for offensive and defensive cyber security affairs. These state sponsored armies or highly skilled IT experts will monitor and collect the personal details of high profile individuals like businessmen and politicians, government and diplomatic secrets as well as classified details of the financial sector of a country that matters the most. These details will be stored safely for future use. To do this the cyber criminals has to hack into a computer network or system first. This is called an intrusion.

Once the system is hacked by an intruder it is highly unlikely for a regular IT operator to realise it. And once the person is connected to the internet the personal data could be absorbed by these intruders or even to infiltrate the system to crash.

Once the system is infected, it is a difficult task to restore it yet the most difficult part is to understand whether a system already has an intrusion. Cyber security in Sri Lanka cannot be considered as a country that has adopted satisfying measures to prevent cyber crimes. This has to be done conceptually and technically.

One would simply think that a proper virus guard or a firewall could protect their personal computer or a data system but it is not as simple as this. Modern spy worms or viruses could penetrate almost any firewall or a virus guard that has to be replaced and checked constantly. Moreover awareness programs should be conducted to educate the public especially those who engage in IT and other related areas about the growing trend. To educate big companies and financial institutes and banks about their cyber protection systems and state departments about their information systems.

This is very important in an era when banking affairs can be done online.

Transferring funds and online payments has to be done in a very secure and private manner where one would not lose its finances because of online thieves.