Introduction

Everything is at your fingertip. The ICT is the order of the day. One either jumps on the
bandwagon or gets left behind. The sophisticated ICT motivates us to to go for the easy ways
in doing our works from running daily errands, paying bills, banking transactions and
international trades. Everything is done in one place or even in the cosy and convenience of
our own home. However, beware of the danger that lurks around each corner of the cyber
world. Cyber crime rate is increasing and poses a menace to internets users worldwide.
Online banking for example, has become a prime target to cyber criminals. Many cases have
been reported where bank customers lost their money through banking transaction. Although
internet brings opportunities, it also brings threat to us. It is extremely crucial for the world
community to develop a highly secured cyber system that will protect their critical
information against intruders and violators. This is because in the age of information
technology, almost all the countries in the world rely on the computer and the internet to
manage important things such as their administration, internal security, military, business,
education and the economy.
Definition of Cyber Crime
Unlike other types of crime, cyber crime is still in its infancy considering the cyber space has
just come into our lives relatively recently, that is in the 1990s. Perhaps to many people in
countries where the computer and the internet are just a luxury, the term cyber crime is rather
uncommon. What exactly is cyber crime? There are many different definitions provided by
different authoritative bodies regarding the meaning of the term. The Merriam-Webster
Online Dictionary defines the term cyber as relating to, or involving computers or computer
networks such as the Internet. The Cambridge Dictionaries Online defines the term as crime
or illegal activity that is done using the Internet. The Oxford Reference Online (2011) defines
cyber crime as crime committed over the Internet. The online Encyclopedia Britannica
(2011) defines cyber crime as any crime that is committed by means of special knowledge or
expert use of computer technology. According to the CyberSecurity Malaysia website, an
authoritative body under the Malaysia Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation
(MOSTI), there is no comprehensive definition of cyber crime. However cyber crime can be
divided into three categories.

The first is when information and communications technology (ICT) systems and
intellectual property become targets of exploitation, intrusion, identity and
information theft.

The second is when ICT devices are used as means to commit crimes. For example,
computers at home are used to run malicious programs to intrude other computers to
steal money, identity and passwords.

The third category is where the ICT devices are used as mediums of committing
crimes. For example, sedition, disharmony or unrest, slandering and instigating at
higher scale come under this category. Some people say these cases must be
prosecuted under cyber laws. But there are already laws that can be used to handle
these cases. For example, for sedition and slander, one can be charged under the Penal
Code.

Cyber crime or computer related crime includes a wide variety of criminal offences and
activities done on the internet with various motives. Schjolberg (2004), states that in 1985 the
Council of Europe appointed an expert committee in order to discuss the legal issues of
computerrelated crime. A summary of the guidelines for national legislatures with liability
was presented in the Recommendation of 1989 and included computer fraud and forgery as
follows:
a) Computer fraud.
The input, alteration, erasure or suppression of computer data or computer programs, or other
interference with the course of data processing, which influences the result of data processing
thereby causing economic or possessory loss of property of another person with the intent of
procuring an unlawful gain for himself or for another person (alternative draft: with the intent
to unlawfully deprive that person of his property).
b) Computer forgery.
The input, alteration, erasure or suppression of computer data or computer programs, or other
interference with the course of data processing, in a manner or under such conditions, as
prescribed by national law, that it would constitute the offence of forgery if it had been
committed with respect to a traditional object of such an offence.
In The United Nations Manual on the Prevention and Control of Computer-Related Crime
(1994), it is specified that computer crime can involve criminal activities that are traditional
in nature, such as theft, fraud, forgery and mischief, all of which are generally subject
everywhere to criminal sanctions. The computer has also created a host of potentially new
misuses or abuses that may, or should, be criminal as well.
Cyber space brings opportunities and hope as well as threat and despair for the whole global
community. As the cyber space and the ICT is the central nerve for cyber crime, cyber
criminal finds that the cyber space is their safe haven because they have the advantage of
eluding law enforcement efforts.
Classification of Cyber Crime
According to The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center, USA, cyber crime
can be generally categorized into different types. Partly this categorization is done based on
the types of reports and complaints received by the organization. Cyber crime can be
categorized as follow:
Non-Delivery Payment/Merchandise (non-auction) Purchaser did not receive items
purchased, or seller did not receive payment for items sold.
FBI-Related Scams Scams in which a criminal poses as the FBI to defraud victims.
Identity Theft Unauthorized use of victims personally identifying information to commit
fraud or other crimes.
Computer Crimes 1) Crimes that target computer networks or devices directly or
2) Crimes facilitated by computer networks or devices.
Miscellaneous Fraud Variety of scams meant to defraud the public, such as work-athome scams, fraudulent sweepstakes and contests, and other fraudulent schemes.
Advance Fee Fraud Criminals convince victims to pay a fee to receive something of
value, but do not deliver anything of value to the victim.
Spam Mass-produced, unsolicited bulk messages.

 Auction Fraud Fraudulent transactions that occur in the context of an online auction site.
Auction fraud involves fraud attributable to the misrepresentation of a product advertised for
sale through an Internet auction site or the non-delivery of products purchased through an
Internet auction site.
Credit Card Fraud Fraudulent, unauthorized charging of goods and services to a
victims credit card.
Overpayment Fraud An incident in which the complainant receives an invalid monetary
instrument with instructions to deposit it in a bank account and to send excess funds or a
percentage of the deposited money back to the sender.
Based on the statistics above, we ca see that the common online frauds include auction fraud,
non-delivery of merchandise, investment fraud, cash fraud, credit card fraud and illegal
transferring of money from someones account to the cyber criminal account. However, the
biggest cyber security concern is cyber identity and personal information theft because this
crime can inflict serious damage to victims. Hacking, use of spyware and phishing are used to
gain personnel information from their victims.
Sometimes, cyber criminals also sabotage a company to weaken business competitors. The
severity of this crime becomes more serious if the breach involves governments and other
important organisations because this threatens the security of the government. Hacking is
another major problem in cyber crime because illegally breaks into computers and computer
networks. Billions of dollars are lost every year repairing systems hit by such attacks.
Sometimes the hackers attack critical systems in hospitals, banks, and emergency services.
This crime can paralyzed many transactions in govermental organisation and the worst thing
is that it risks the safety and security of the general public.
Comparison of Cyber Crimes in Malaysia and the USA
i.

Statistics of Cyber Crime in the USA

According to The Internet Crime Complaint Center hereforth known as IC3- (2011), a
special task force under the FBI, the most common cyber crime victim complaints in 2010
were non-delivery of payment/merchandise, scams impersonating the FBI (hereafter FBIrelated scams) and identity theft. Victims of these rimes reported losing hundreds of millions
of dollars. The website received 275,284 complaint submissions. This is a (33.1%) increase
when compared to 2008 when 206,884 complaints were received. The USA Government
Accountability Office (2007) announces that the loss due to computer crime was estimated to
be $67.2 billion for U.S. organizations, according to a 2005 Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) survey. Based on this figure alone it is clearly discernible that loss of fund, from the US
public in general and the business community especially, to different forms of cyber crime is
very high.
IC3 Internet Crime Report (2010) shows a stunning number of online crimes. Yearly
complaints received by the organization shot from 16,838 in the year 2000 to 303,809 in the
year 2010. In 2010, the top ten types of crimes reported to the website are as follow:
1. Non-delivery Payment/Merchandise 14.4%
2. FBI-Related Scams 13.2%
3. Identity Theft 9.8%
4. Computer Crimes 9.1%

5. Miscellaneous Fraud 8.6%

6. Advance Fee Fraud 7.6%
7. Spam 6.9%
8. Auction Fraud 5.9%
9. Credit Card Fraud 5.3%
10. Overpayment Fraud 5.3%
The figures show that non-delivery of payment or merchandise was the most reported
offense, followed by FBI-related scams and identity theft.
In is also interesting to note that the highest number of complainants is not found in the most
advanced and developed states in the USA, instead most complainants comes from the more
backward states in the US. Below is the statistics that shows the top ten states with highest
number of camplainants received by the IC3.

State

Per 100,000 Population

1. Alaska
566.57
2. Colorado
134.99
3. District of Columbia
129.29
4. New Jersey
122.86
5. Nevada
119.19
6. Maryland
117.29
7. Washington
108.06
8. Florida
105.72
9. Arizona
104.27
10. Virginia
93.76
In terms of the complainants demographic, IC3 reported that the age of the complainants
ranges from under 20 years of age to 60 years old. Most complainants were in the U.S., male,
between 40 and 59 and a resident of California, Florida, Texas or New York. Most foreign
complainants were from Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia or India. Men reported
greater dollar losses than women (at a ratio of $1.25 to every $1.00). Individuals of 60-andover reported higher median amounts of loss than other age groups.This shows that cyber
crime affects people regardless of their age and socioeconomics background.
ii.

Statistics of cyber crime in Malaysia

Cybersecurity Malaysia website published a piece of news entitled Cybercrimes continue to

rise reported by The Star (23 Sept 2011) in which the chief executive officer of
Cybersecurity Malaysia, Lt Col (Rtd) Prof Datuk Husin Jazri said the Malaysian cyber threat
landscape is no less alarming with over 10,000 cases reported every month up till August this
year. Last year, Cybersecurity Malaysia received over 8,000 reports about cybercrime via its
cyber999 hotline. Its Cyber Early Warning System has also detected over 5,000,000 security
threats up until August. In another report published by teh same website entitled Proactive
take on cybercrime released by The New Straits Times, 22 October 2007, Lt Col (R) Husin

Jazri said the current threats are a compromise of systems through automated tools and ofline
fraud, including identify theft. Forty-five per cent of the reported incidents this year as at July
are related to system intrusion while 34 per cent are online fraud. Last year, the two
categories made up about 86 per cent of all reported incidents.
In comparison the statistics above shows increasing trend in cases of reported cyber crime in
both countries. The number of reported cases in both countries does not reflect the actual
severity of cyber crime cases as they could be influenced by other factors including
awareness about cyber crimes and consumers rights campaigns. It could be inferred that the
public in the US is more willing to report cyber crime cases as compared to Malaysians.
Recommendations and Suggestions
Cyber crime is very elusive to law and enforcement because it operates in the cyber space. Iin
order to combat the crime, a relentless efforts need to be taken in a concerted manner between
nations all over the world. Here are some suggestions on useful measures to be taken by
governments and organizations in the world to curb cyber crime:
1. Improving the Cyber Security Management System
The public increasingly relies on the internet to carry out many important in day-to-day
activities in their lives. Therefore it is essential to identify all the weaknessess in the cyber
space that provides opportunities to be manipulated by cyber criminal and take steps to
implement appropriate safeguards. It is very important that organisations which depends
heavily on information and communications technology, either govermental or business
firms, to hire and train highly qualified ICT security professionals to manage the security of
the organisation's computer and network system. Certification bodies should establish to
certify experts and a high standard of security measures should be produced and constantly
upgraded. These organizations must set up a security management and adopt good
information security practices to ensure their own defense against cyber crime.
2. Law Enforcement
The current cyber law is still inefficient to deal with cyber crime. The complex nature of ICT
renders traditional laws irrelevant to handle crime related to this new technology. The law
enforcement, legal and jurisdiction bodies must develop new skills to be able to respond
adequately to the challenge presented by computer crime. More judges and lawyers who
specialise in cyber laws and know how to cope with technicality of the crime should be
trained. A cyber court which could accelerate the prosecution of cyber criminals should be
established. The Malaysian government for example, has executed a policy and enacted laws
like the Computer Crime Act 1997 and the Communication and Multimedia Act 1998. The
1998 Communication and Multimedia Act paves the way for a more comprehensive method
to cope with cyber crime.. The purpose of this act is to enable an establishment of a special
committee that will monitor all matters regarding network and internet security. It has also set
up institutions like CyberSecurity Malaysia and establishes the National Cyber Security
Policy to face all the challenges. This will also instill cyber security awareness among
Internet users so that they will not become easy prey for cyber crime.
The security departments of nations need to establish a special task force trained in
investigating cyber crime and are well equipped to bring the criminals to justice. The

dinamics of ICT advances rapidly which requires the law enforcement agencies to be
provided with expertise to deal with the technical aspects of cyber crimes. The law enforcer,
prosecutors and jurisdiction bodies must be able to understand security technologies well so
that prosecution cases cannot be manipulated by defence lawyers and cyber criminals.
3. Educating the Society
The world community in general should be more aware of the threats of various types of
cyber crimes. The general public should be well informed about the danger they face
everytime they use the internet. Internet users should be informed about the importance of
protecting confidential personal information such as personal data, bank account and also
credit cards against cyber criminals. They should not reveal these informations to any
unknown person, organization or websites because these informations expose the person to
financial and identity frauds. Once a persons personal information is obtained by a cyber
criminal, the person will be exposed to all sorts of cyber crime. Internet users should know
that it is crucial to keep their passwords a secret and that they should not reveal their
passwords to any unknown person. Each time they are required to give out their personal
information in any online transaction, they should first clarify the identity and the status of
the respective person or organisation they are dealing with.
In computer subjects in schools, children can be taught about the danger of cyber crime and
how to protect themselves from fallinf prey to the crime. Other internet users should also be
exposed to information about cyber crimes through available media. In carrying out online
transaction, they should always ascertain the identity of the person or organisation they are
dealing with.
Conclusion
Based on the above discussion, it can be concluded that cyber crime cannot be downplayed
because it has become a major threat to the international community. A coorinated effort
should be carried for the benefit of internet users so that they are protected from cyber crime.
A strong support and cooperation from members of society and the government is crucial in
order to establish a coordinated effort to combat cyber crime effectively. Members of society
should work together to contribute in the fight against cyber crime. They should also take
precautions when using the internet to avoid becoming cyber crime victims. An international
effort should be geared towards fighting cyber crime. Negative and erroneous attitude should
be eradicated as ther only makes it easier for cyber criminal to strike.

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