Sharp increase in cyber attacks in first nine months of 2014

Science, Technology and Innovation Deputy Minister, Datuk Dr Abu Bakar Mohamad Diah said out of the number, 717 cases were recorded in January, February (498), March (707), April (773), May (645), June (777), July (943), August (1,258) and September (1,822).

He said cyber scams (3,326 cases) formed the biggest number among the nine types of cyber threats recorded in the period, followed by spam (1,710), attempted hacking (1,244), hacking (708), malicious code (645), cyber harassment (430), harassment-related cases (29), phishing (25) and phony services (23).

"This high increase in cyber threat cases is serious and needs to be tackled proactively with the cooperation of various parties, especially CyberSecurity Malaysia as the cyber threat monitoring and enforcement agency, besides information communication technology (ICT) experts and researchers in this country.

"This is important not only to protect the country's information technology system but also consumers from becoming victims of cyber wrongdoings."

Abu Bakar said this to reporters after opening the World Congress on Information and Communication Technologies 2014 (WITC 2014) organised by Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM).

Also present were CyberSecurity Malaysia vice-president (Research) Lt Col (Rtd) Sazali Sukardi and UTeM vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Shahrin Sahib.

On another matter, Abu Bakar said the ministry always encouraged research or the creation of ICT products towards improving the efficiency of the ICT system in this country.

"We have enough allocations for the ICT field and we encourage those carrying out research to seek funding."

He said to date, 11 of 65 products that had been commercialised in conjunction with the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry's Commercialisation Year 2014 were high-impact products with the potential for commercialisation internationally.