Cyber incidents, threats to increase in second half, says cyber-security Malaysia

Cyber incidents and threats are expected to increase in the second half of this year, given the growing Internet usage in the country, said CyberSecurity Malaysia Chief Executive Officer, Amirudin Abdul Wahab. From January to June 2013, CyberSecurity's help centre, Cyber999, handled 5,592 cyber security incidents compared with 5,581 reported in the first half of 2012. Amirudin said cyber incidents would further increase in the future due to the fact that a lot of people were connected to the Net. "If these threats are not controlled and the community is not given a proper education and awareness, the threats could undermine and destroy the country's well-being," he said. Amirudin said this at a media briefing after the review of the cyber security scenario in Malaysia in the first half of the year here today. He said fraud was the most reported incidents, followed by intrusion, spam, malicious codes, cyber harrasment, content-related, intrusion attempts, denial of service and vulnerability report. Amirudin said the centre would launch more programmes to create awareness and educate the people on the threats and how to stay safe in the cyberspace. "The most important thing that an Internet user should do is to be an ethical social citizen when using emails and social websites like Facebook, Twitter and blogs. "People should not get too emotional and believe the information spread by unknown sources," he said. Malaysia is the sixth most vulnerable country in the world to cyber crime, in the form of malware attacks through the computer or smartphone, he said. He said people should avoid buying counterfeit software as it was the easiest way of getting malware attacks. Meanwhile, he said, cyber crime in the country decreased to 9,986 cases in 2012 from 15,218 in 2011. The drop was due to the effective enforcement by the government enforcement agencies, including CyberSecurity, he said. CyberSecurity Malaysia, a technical agency in the field of cyber security and also an agency under purview of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, responsible to monitor the country's e-security aspects. He urged the public to contact CyberSecurity at its helpline, Cyber999, by calling 03-89926969 to provide information or lodge complaint.