http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=51301 By Husna Ali Karachi April 15, 2007 The government has announced that it will install high technology mechanisms at the National Response Center of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to counter cyber-terrorism but what cannot be ignored is that the existing Cyber Crime Wing of the FIA lacks not only the advanced technology, but is devoid of any infrastructure as well. Launched on March 13, 2003, the Cyber Crime Wing was established after the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl. In this case, Pakistani agencies had to rely on American investigators to trace the e-mails sent to the media by his abductors. That is when the need was felt for such a unit. The Pakistan government was criticized at that time heavily by certain quarters of the Western media, as controversies kept on pouring from all corners over the circumstances in which the murder took place. Born out of this need, the Cyber Crime Wing was launched with a bang - soliciting international coverage, as well as accolades for this initiative. However it never evolved completely as an independent unit and remained under the Crime Circle of FIA. Yes it is not a separate set up and is still in the offing, and working under crime circle, said Deputy Director FIA Immigration, Khalique-uz-Zaman. Such programmes take time and investment, he said, admitting that the current Cyber Crime Wing, despite the huge publicity it received from the media, is not effective even after three years of its launch. Khalique-uz-Zaman, who solved the first cyber crime case involving Western Union where Rs5 to 6 million were laundered, thinks that cyber crime is not a very common type of crime in Pakistan. This crime is still few and far between, but creating a separate facility will help us control and handle such crime effectively in the future, he disclosed. However, another official belonging to the Personal Identification Secure Comparison and Evaluation System (PICES) department of FIA, contradicts this. He says that the problem is that of detection. He says that the problem of cyber crime is that it is disguised and people cannot distinguish between regular and internet based crime. With its headquarters in Islamabad and zonal directorates in the provincial capitals, the current Cyber Crime Wing is in dire need of technical staff to carry out raids and solve complicated net crimes. It took more than three years for the government of Pakistan to finally allocate a budget of approximately Rs181.42 million to establish a separate and fully equipped facility. To tackle this fast growing crime in the country, many in the FIA hope for a speedy clearance of this budget to start building the facility soon. Mehmud-ul-Hasan, the Deputy Director for National Response Center for Cyber Crime (NRSCC), talking to The News during his recent visit to Karachi from the capital, said that since its launch in 2003, no technical or additional staff has been hired for this wing and it stands in urgent need of trained manpower. We used to function from the office of crime wing because we did not have either the set up or the manpower, he stated, adding there was no appointment as such except that of Ammar Hussain Jaffery, Director NRSCC and myself were assigned to handle crime related to the Internet, he said. The new set up, as promised, will offer state of the art facilities including a forensic lab and a staff of 184 trained personnel. But this is still a dream. The current staff will also be imparted training. Currently the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) is providing training whenever needed, under an MOU signed between the two agencies in 2005. While cyber crime has evidently increased over the years, only 33 cases were registered in 2006 due to lack of public awareness about the existence of this wing. Yes people do not know about cyber crime wing because there has been no proper publicity to acquaint the masses with the department, he said. A large chunk of the budget will now be allocated to educate citizens about the new facility of Cyber Crime Wing and its working. A mass awareness campaign would be launched to enlighten the public on the concept of cyber crime and the existence of a facility where they can lodge their complaints, said the enthusiastic Hasan. However he feels that such awareness should not be limited to the media alone but should be included in school curricula as well. The allocation of this huge budget is no surprise to anyone because right after the US invasion of Afghanistan, US officials had claimed that the next attack on its soil could be in the form of cyber terrorism. On account of being a close ally on War against terrorism, Pakistan had to focus its attention too towards this area. Pakistan too is also a victim of cyber terror. Hacking of official government websites is also reported to have increased in Pakistan since September 11, 2001 attacks and later the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq by American forces, making Pakistan also vulnerable to cyber terrorism. Right after the US invasion of Afghanistan, some pro-Taliban Pakistani hackers entered the official websites of India and left threatening messages, reported a website. Hasan agreed that hacking of official websites was also a concern for developing this new facility, along with other Internet based crimes which ranged from financial crimes to criminal act of aggression, both against the state and against the citizens. He, however refrained from giving any more information regarding e-crimes committed against the Pakistani government. As for how many Pakistani websites have been hacked since then, Hasan again refused to give details but agreed that some important websites have been hacked in the past. It is interesting to mention here that despite the immense growth that Pakistan has made in the IT sector, Pakistan government websites are not hosted locally. Yes we are on foreign servers and have to rely on them in case of break down, Hasan accepted reluctantly, adding, we have been asking to host our websites locally but to no avail. While cyber crime was earlier limited to financial crimes which included credit card theft, illegal transactions through online banking and money laundering, it has now reached new heights and creates new concerns amongst the government and masses alike. The new worries are pornography, email-spoofing and cyber defamation which has increased here over the years but have gone unpunished in absence of a separate facility and lack of awareness. A recent addition to the cyber crime, which requires the attention of authorities here in Pakistan is the telecom sector through which crime has increased. With the boom in the cell phone business, many consumers are complaining of their accounts being misused or their amount being unduly deducted by the phone companies. Such theft usually goes unreported because people do not know where to lodge complaints, he informed adding, and this is s very lucrative crime for some companies. Hasan explained that even if 10 rupees, which a very small amount for a user, was illegally deducted from one subscriber, imagine the huge amount of money that would come in given the large number of users in the country. This is a big scam we are talking about. The new facility promises to control this and many other Cyber Crime being committed everday. But all this depends on when the promised money will come through and whether it will be used for the purpose earmarked. __________________________ Subscribe to InfoSec News http://www.infosecnews.org
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