KUCHING: The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has been urged to work with the police to tackle cybercrimes, especially online fraud or scam cases.
Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) Women chief Kho Teck Wan said the relevant authorities must investigate the cases thoroughly despite they (cases) were usually quite complex and time consuming.
She said a total of 3,057 cybercrime cases were reported to Cyber Security Malaysia as of May this year, where 2,147 were classified as fraud.
“The lukewarm responses from the law enforcement (in investigating these cases) are disappointing,” she said in a statement today.
Kho said the public was generally not aware of cybercrime; the complexity of digital crime can be hard to explain as well. Thus, the law enforcement agencies, regulatory bodies, government as well as the banks should work together to reduce the frequency of these cases.
Apart from that, she said, Bank Negara should take action against any bank should they fail to comply with the Risk Management in Technology (RMiT) policy.
“A bank is accountable to safeguard customers’ savings, therefore they should take the first step to perform an internal investigation and report the incident to authorities immediately whenever a complaint is lodged.
“Without such proactive actions, people will slowly lose their confidence in financial institutions, which can result in serious consequences to the future prospects of the banking sector.
“Financial institutions should take this opportunity to assess, improve and strengthen Information security in the organisation,” she added.
Kho, who was also the former data storage lead for Tyson Food Inc in the USA, and information security architect for Sarawak Energy Berhad, said the public need to be aware of how the crime was committed so they can avoid becoming the next victim.
She advised the public to practice common sense and always be vigilant when engaging in any online activities, including ensuring an application is downloaded from a trusted source and from Apple or Google play instead of any website.
“Some online games and applications are collecting personal information and assessing your phone, thus, don’t be tempted to download or play the games,” she said.
She also urged the public not to provide any personal info and bank login credentials to unknown websites and turn on the two-factor authentication whenever it is available. Never trust any text messages or Short Message Service (SMS) as well as phone calls that claim that they are from the bank. Instead, verify personally with the local or nearest branch.
“Offers and free gifts can be tempting, but many times they are the first step to get the victims,” she stressed.
Kho said the public should inform the bank and lodge a police report immediately should they become the victim of cybercrime.
“Lastly, in response to recent press which stated that current laws don’t empower police to recover the victims’ money, I would like to urge our Members of Parliament (MPs) to study the relevant laws together with cyber security experts and MCMC, so the relevant laws can be improve to safeguard publics’ saving.”
