Littoral Magistrates reinforce fight against Cyber crime

Cyber crime is growing in leaps and bound in Cameroon. The international  organisation, "Internet without Borders" puts the country behind Nigeria and Ghana as one of the worst hit on the African continent. This unscrupulous new- generational crime is often carried out by either individuals or small groups who tend to devise new strategies in committing old crimes.
These cyber criminals who generally use fake identities resort to scamming; a phenomenon common in towns like Bamenda, Buea, Douala and Yaounde where non-existing pets like cats and dogs are sold online to short-sighted customers in Europe and America.
Cyber criminals do not only swindle people but steal their personal information, identities and hack into their accounts.Most at times, the computers they use to carry out their deceitful acts are usually controlled by someone faraway.

The Director general of the National Agency for Information and Communication Technologies (Antic), Ebot Enaw, said last year that local banks lost at least CFA3 billion (more than $5 million) through acts of skimming. Skimming consists of criminals hacking magnetic cards with special devices inserted in automated teller machines.“After pirating the electronic bank card details of unsuspecting customers, criminals then go to ATMs and withdraw money from the bank accounts of their victims,” Ebot said.
But the danger posed by skimming pales in comparison to that of “SIM box” fraud.

A SIM box is a device that enables people abroad to place calls at local tariffs, causing huge financial losses to companies as well as the Treasury.
Last October, all four telephone operators in Cameroon – MTN, Orange, Camtel and Nextel – revealed that they had lost significant amounts of money to SIM box fraud.
The illicit activity cost local telephone companies CFA18bn and the state CFA4bn last year.
Philisiwe Sibiya, the chief executive of MTN Cameroon, said fraudsters diverted “close to 60 million minutes” of international call traffic through SIM box fraud during the period.
Cybercrime in Cameroon also manifests itself through “we defacement”, whereby criminals change the interface of a website, fake profiles on social networks, and hack into e-mails to con citizens.
Government departments have not been spared.

Ebot said at least 20 government establishments, including the National Assembly and the Cameroon Radio Television, had fallen prey to "we defacement" fraud.
“About 90 percent of the software and operating systems used in Cameroon have been hacked,” he added.

While the criminals excel in attacking the websites of prominent institutions, they constantly change their own websites and e-mails, making them hard to monitor.
“Antic was able to unveil 100 cases where cyber criminals attacked websites in an attempt to get the e-mails of some personalities while 700 cases of ‘scamming’ were uncovered,” Ebot disclosed.
Unfortunately Judges who play an important role in the criminal justice system lack adequate knowledge of ICTs and the realities of the cyber world. The country's cyber watchdog notes that this setback makes it challenges for them to deal with such cases in courts.
it is for this reason that Magistrates of the Littoral court of Appeal are acquainting themselves with knowledge of cyber crime and electronic evidences to enable better handle cyber cases.
The ANTIC Director revealed to reporters in Douala,  Thursday that participants will engage in training, networking and specialization in the two day forum supervised by the Ministry of Justice.