CYBER CRIME

On this month’s Crimecall Detective Chief Superintendent Paul Cleary was in studio to discuss the recent Cybercrime investigation involving the HSE and the Department of Health. 

He outlined what has happened and the seriousness of the ransomware attack.  He advised that there was a rise in all cybercrime worldwide and the lengths cyber criminals will go to, e.g. how adaptive they were in responding to the pandemic, and the subsequent tailored pandemic based cybercrimes. 

Detective Chief Superintendent Cleary discussed the primary types of cyber dependent crimes which are ransomware and computer hacking offences which directly target the computer or its data. While hacking offences have remained largely static, ransomware attacks have grown significantly. However these types of crimes are traditionally underreported. Among the most prevalent cyber enabled crimes, or ordinary crime committed over a computer, are phishing which has seen a significant rise while people are working from home and email compromise where a supplier business email asks for payment details to be changed. However the email is fraudulent and the payment is then quickly withdrawn before the fraud is noticed by the company receiving it. 

Advice 

The advice to people would be:

• - Don’t do online what you wouldn’t do offline. People have a false sense of security when they are behind the computer screen but they should be suspicious for that very reason. 
• - People are advised to only friend people they know or trust.
• - Not to click on links in unsolicited emails.
• - To be aware that Banks and organisations such as the Garda or HSE will never ask for financial details to confirm identity.
• - Update your software and systems from reputable suppliers only and do this regularly to stay safer.
• - Backup your files regularly to a separate storage device or a reputable online cloud account.
• - Report any suspicious or fraudulent activity to your local Garda station.
• - If you are concerned about the safety of your data you can contact the organisation involved, such as the HSE. If you believe or know your data has been used in a crime, or you have been the victim of a cybercrime, you should report it to your local Garda station. Private and corporate victims are advised to get in touch with their local station if they have been the victim of any cyber-attack. 

More information is available on the Garda Website at www.garda.ie/cybercrime.