‘Strategic Partnership Against Cyber Threats’

By Sonny Zulhuda

This week attending the OIC-CERT Seminar 2008 held in one hotel in KL between13-15 January 2009 organized by Cyber Security Malaysia. Series of lectures, workshops and discussions in which talks on information security and cyber terrorism issues were held. The theme is as reflected in the tile above.

From legal points of view, Datuk Abdul Raman Saad, among others, gave his views on legal aspects of cyber-terrorism and cyber crimes (‘Bad Economy Fuels Cyber Crime’). He noted one report from the Star on 6th January 2009 quoting the Minister of Water, Energy and Communications saying that the ministry had sobmitted more than 30 cyber crime cases to the Attorney Chambers in the last three years (the same was reported by Bernama).

A Test Case for the Malaysia’s Computer Crimes Act 1997

Today, one of the offences under the Malaysia’s decade-age cybercrime statute is going to be put on a test.

At one proceeding in a Sessions Court in Ipoh, a man has been charged with four coutns relating to an illegal transfer of land titles. The man is charged under section 5(1) of the Computer Crimes Act 1997 that makes it an offence to modify contents of a computer or computer system without authority. The accused claims trial and the case will be mentioned on 9 Oct 2008.

Deciphering Cybercrime (3) – Legislation in Select Countries

By: Sonny Zulhuda

How do other countries respond? The progress that is ongoing in the Europe and international level is also taking place in many individual countries in Asia. Some of them had already legislated laws on cyber crime as early as 1993 (Hong Kong and Singapore) and 1997 (Malaysia). Some of these legislations were influenced by the UK Computer Misuse Act 1984 due to the fact that they were part of English Commonwealth countries. The summary of those laws is presented here derived from various sources.

Deciphering Cybercrime (2) – Global Prescription for a Global Problem

By: Sonny Zulhuda

UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime 2000

Even though criminal law is subject to the local criminalization of offences such as described in the earlier paragraph, there is a growing consensus that some types of crime is given a global recognition, due to two-fold factors: the cross-border implication of such crime and the fact that certain crimes are perpetrated by a cross-border organized crime. This global crime reputation is currently enjoyed by criminals involved in money-laundering, global terrorism, as well as in illegal trafficking of gun, drugs and human.

Deciphering Cybercrime (1) – What and What

By: Sonny Zulhuda

Introduction

Sixteen years after the being revolutionized by the invention of the World Wide Web, the Internet now becomes a common platform of over one billion users in the world who embrace into the cyberspace to exchange information, trade communications and execute commercial transactions. In this sense, the WWW founder Sir Tim Barnes Lee might have reached his prime objective in that the idea of cyberspace becoming a two-way transactional medium had been well achieved; when writing information is as simple as reading it. With the abundant benefits readily acquired by Internet users ranging from scientific researchers to trade merchants, from university students to corporate managers, and from government officials to mothers at home who explores new recipe, however, Sir Tim may have never imagined that today’s cyberspace would also have achieved another ‘reputation’ of being a notorious criminal frontier where stealing data is as easy as acquiring it rather legally. The truth is, the Internet is already very helpful for malicious minds who wish to pursue their malicious intention.