[AfrICANN-discuss] Davos calls for clear laws against cybercrime

[Anne-Rachel Inné]

Davos calls for clear laws against cybercrime
*
http://mg.co.za/article/2012-01-26-davos-calls-for-clear-laws-against-cybercrime/
HUI MIN NEO* DAVOS, SWITZERLAND - Jan 26 2012 11:34

International action to snuff out cybercrime is desperately needed,
officials and business leaders said, warning that criminals move at
internet speed while countries drag their feet.

 Many hackers are no longer just mischievous individuals.

Instead well-funded organisations do it for profit, along with spies and
terrorists, but many governments are struggling to fight it.

"Many countries don't have laws to criminalise cybercrime, they don't have
means and tools to investigate, to share information," said Yury Fedotov,
who heads the United Nations office on drugs and crime.

Cybercrime is "interconnected in terms of crime, but not interconnected in
collaboration" against it, he added, noting that there is not even an
agreement on what constitutes cybercrime.

Fedotov said his greatest wish would be "to get a clear definition of
cybercrime -- to be clear about what should be rejected by member states
and what should be allowed."

"Criminals move at the speed of internet and countries move at speed of
democracy -- that's the discrepancy," warned Moises Naim, senior associate
at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In one of the major recent attacks in January, a hacker brought down the
websites of Israel's national carrier El Al and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

It marked the latest incident in a series of attacks only days into 2012,
which saw details of tens of thousands of Israeli credit cards posted
online and websites defaced by hackers claiming to be from Saudi Arabia or
Gaza.

  "One recommendation is any solution ... is going to require a much higher
degree of public, private partnership," Johnson stressed. -- AFP

Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesperson for Gaza's Hamas rulers, has hailed the
action, describing it as "a sign of the Arab youth's creativity in
inventing new forms of Arab and Islamic resistance against the Israeli
occupation".

The Israeli market was not the only one subject to such attacks.

US exchange Nasdaq's general counsellor Edward Knight told delegates in
Davos that the world's largest exchange company is also "subject to
constant attacks, a million or more ... intrusions into our systems".

He complained that there is no clarity on "where is public responsibility
and where is private responsibility" on clamping down on such crime.

Unlike real world attacks, the private sector is required to provide its
own defence system, even if virtual attacks are coming from foreign
governments.

Kevin Johnson, chief executive officer at the US-based internet
infrastructure provider Juniper Networks, urged state authorities to work
with private organisations to clamp down on such crime.

"The challenge is that the internet is a global resource but there are no
geographic boundaries on the Internet, yet laws are established by nation
states, they are establised by geography," he said.
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