Cybercrime soaring but underreported

Cybercrime is soaring in Macau but the official numbers might just be a small portion of the real cases, said visiting cybercrime expert Marco Gercke. Still, the director of Germany’s Cybercrime Research Institute praised the local legislation as “one of the best in the world”.
Since the MSAR revised its anti-cybercrime law, in August 2009, the police have registered 124 criminal cases. Last December, the Judiciary Police director Wong Sio Chak acknowledged that cybercrimes were increasing, especially “fraud scams”.
However, it is uncertain if statistics and reports are representative and accurate, Gercke said on the opening session of the “Internet Crimes: From Global Challenge to Small Countries’ Response” seminar.
Hardly anybody reports cybercrimes such as computer virus and spam e-mail, he stressed. In addition, most companies also fail to warn the police about more serious cybercrimes for fear of “bad publicity,” the German expert added.
Nonetheless, he had nothing but praise for the local authorities’ efforts in tackling internet-based crimes. “Macau has a very good legislation, one of the best in the world,” said Gercke, who was involved as an advisor in the development process of the law.
“In a way, Macau is even more advanced than Europe and the US. The Macau [anti-cybercrime] law picked up some of the trends that are not yet found in European laws,” he told media.
Legislation aside, Gercke also emphasised the need for training both police officers and magistrates. “It’s not sufficient to give training every 5 or 6 years because criminals’ methods are changing all the time,” he said.
And the territory is organising training programmes every year, the University of Cologne lecturer stressed. “That is unique. Small territories can have disadvantages in fighting cybercrimes due to the lack of resources but they also have big advantages and training is one of them. Macau has a great chance,” he said.

Slow cooperation

Gercke acknowledged that even with the best legislation, equipment and trained staff, fighting cybercrime is not an easy task. During the five-day seminar, he will also talk about the transnational nature of most Internet crimes.
The global communication network works in such a way that its data exchange processes can be “nearly uncontrollable,” the Council of Europe expert wrote in his presentation. Consequently to investigate cybercrimes “requires international cooperation” between security forces of different jurisdictions.
But Gercke says the formal procedures can take too long and “become a major obstacle” for the investigation. In fact, he disclosed, “there are concerns that offenders are intentionally designing transnational scams to hinder investigation”.
Cooperation is very often limited to cases where two jurisdictions share a similar legal standard for a particular cybercrime, Gercke bemoaned. This could lead to the creation of “safe havens” for criminals, he warned.
A concern shared by Anna-Maria Talihärm, of Estonia’s Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence. “It will take time to reach international consensus on cyber defence legal aspects due to different experience, lexicons and priorities,” she wrote in her presentation.
Small countries should take into account their characteristics in fighting cybercrime but at the same time there is a need for harmonisation, the Tallinn Technical University professor explained.