Internet Crime on the rise in the Caribbean ?

Jamaica – It’s big business elsewhere so, with the rise of the internet culture in the Caribbean, the region was sure to get their fair share of phishing, site hacking and identity theft. Symantec, a US based internet security firm published a report recently that showed that “Internet crime is becoming a major commercial activity.”

In its report the company describes underworld auction sites where bank details and credit cards are on sale and commercial software used by criminals to launch attacks on websites is also being traded. And hence the parallel trend in the Caribbean. In the last 60 days alone, there were two major attacks on Jamaica-basedbanks recently. These are snippets of newspaper reports:

1. Phishers target National Commercial Bank customers: Bank says clients’ funds safe

Jamaica’s financial sector has caught the attention of hackers and identity thieves lately, with the latest phishing threat surfacing in the form of a scam email purported to be from National Commercial Bank (NCB) requesting the verification of personal account information. NCB has about 80,000 electronic financial services subscribers. Read the full article here

2. First Global site hacked

The website of First Global Financial Services appears to have been hacked yesterday by an unknown entity calling itself the ‘Ayyildiz Team’. Visitors to www.fgfs.com and its web pages were directed, after a few seconds, to a site called ‘www.m0sted.net/kerem125.html’, which appeared to be Islamist and whose authors also appeared to be angry with Sweden. The company offers corporate finance, securities trading and pension funds management services, is part of the First Global Group of Companies, which is owned by conglomerate, Grace Kennedy. Its FGFS website is powered by Imex Technologies .Read the full article here.

The Symantec report also revealed that there are online discussion boards where members buy and sell the kind of information that enables identity theft; sites where individuals were offering everything from 100million email addresses to bank logins and credit card details; and also sites where phishing kits are on sale enabling buyers to set up fake banking sites to lure unsuspecting customers.

sources:jamaica observer, jamaica gleaner, tech jamaica