Cyber Crime Targeting Hong Kong as Its New Abode

Hong Kong, with the higher rate of computer virus and spam than the world average, is speedily becoming the hot-spot for the Internet related attacks, reported The Standard on November 20, 2008.

According to the speakers at the Information Security Summit 2008, there has been a considerable increase of 44% in hacking attacks during Jan-Oct 2008. On November 19, 2008, Wilson Fung Wing-yip, Executive Director, Productivity Council, stated that uptill now in 2008, the CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) has dealt with about 483 incidents of hacking.

Further, Roy Ko Wai- tak, Team Center Manager, added that the majority of these attacks have been launched by highly professional cyber crime organizations, reported lifeofguangzhou.com.

However, the response team is constantly coordinating with governments of various nations to track the hackers, but the current trend will probably continue in near future. With the increasing number of broadband subscribers in India and China, Internet related crime will go up only.

The security researchers at MessageLabs revealed that in May 2008, 89% of total e-mails sent to Hong Kong were spam e-mails as compared to about 80% recorded globally. However, there is a decline in the level of spam, but the size of the files is becoming enormous. Consequently, the possibility of jamming of the inboxes is higher. Additionally, the rate of virus infections, at 1.34%, is also leaning above the global average of 0.78%.

According to the security experts, huge number of financial institutes and the blend of Asian as well as Western populations in Hong Kong are largely responsible for making it the prime target of the scammers. In 2007, 63% spam was poured in from the West and about one-fourth was from China.

Moreover, Mr. Fung asked the government to raise the awareness among the general public about the significance of a safe Internet environment. He also emphasized on the need of laying down an outline of the policy to assist that sort of environment. Also, Mr. Ko suggested the companies not to compromise on the security by cutting down the budgets of cyber-security to combat the financial recession.

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» SPAMfighter News - 12/4/2008