NO country or organisation is immune to cyberattacks. Recent attacks on the Royal Malaysian Navy, United States air force and the Nigerian navy on highly classified documents have led to leaks that ended up on the Dark Web. This has prompted heightened awareness of the need to be more secure, vigilant and resilient.
The Royal Malaysian Navy is aware of the stolen information and confirmed that it is already obsolete. Political activists take advantage of the Dark Web to hide their activities as they can become virtually untraceable and can operate beyond the grasp of law enforcement agencies. A group of cyber extortionists claims to have dirt on US President Donald Trump and threatened to publish the information before the US presidential election.
Criminologist Dr Michael Mc-Guire said healthcare, banking and commerce are targeted sectors. During this Covid-19 crisis, hackers have carried out a number of cyberattacks. Some hospitals have faced ransomware attacks, with databases and records of patients who have Covid-19 ending up on the Dark Web.
Even our Health Ministry is cautioning Malaysians against buying plasma from the Dark Web amid reports that cyber criminals are selling fake products online as demand for them has been increasing amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Recently, Singapore suffered its worst-ever cyberattack when hackers broke into SingHealth's IT systems to steal data and records of 1.5 million in-patients and outpatients and even the types of medication given to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
In another case, a cyber criminal claimed to have the complete records and personal details of 1,164,540 Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) students and alumni who studied at the institution between 2000 and 2018. The hackers wanted to prove a point and to tell UiTM to beef up its IT security. The information was eventually sold on the Dark Web.
A few years ago, Richard Huckle, who posed as a freelance photographer and an English teacher, got access to impoverished communities here. He used the Dark Web to post more than 20,000 pictures of children, some as young as six months old, being sexually abused from 2006 to 2014. He was jailed for life after admitting to 71 charges of sexual abuse against children.
Surface Web, Deep Web and Dark Web are three layers of the Internet. Like an iceberg, interestingly, the Surface Web contains only four per cent of the Internet, the remaining 96 per cent is in the Deep Web. This is not to say that the Deep Web is always malicious. Medical records, academic and legal document are also kept and stored there for protection and privacy purposes.
What is disconcerting about the Deep Web is the part called the Dark Web — hidden and not accessible through the traditional search engine. To access that part, you need a special browser known as the Onion Router (TOR), originally developed by the US navy
to protect government intelligence communications. It protects users' privacy and hides users' IP addresses, which makes the user impossible to be traced.
Organised crime sites offer the largest marketplace on the Dark Web for the purchasing of illegal products and services, such as sensitive data, financial transactions, corruption, drugs, contract killers, human organs, child pornography, counterfeit money, fake passports, firearms and stolen bank account information. They even have different business models, advertising and collaboration among hackers and criminals and exploit organisations around the clock.
Malaysia may consider initiating a "National Plan to Fight Illicit Activities in Cyberspace" consisting of law enforcement agencies and regulators in collaboration with Cybersecurity Malaysia and acquire the knowledge and know-how to tackle the Dark Web. Today, to hide money and make it difficult for law enforcement agencies to investigate, corrupt payments and receipts are transacted using Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency.
The government may consider forming a federal crime agency, like the United Kingdom's National Crime Agency, with specialised capabilities to fight serious organised crime, including cybercrime, drugs, human and weapon trafficking and economic crime. The NCA has a cybercrime unit to tackle the Dark Web.
To ensure our cyberspace is safe from cyberattacks, it has to begin at the design phase. Besides combating cybercrime, greater prevention and mitigation awareness campaigns are vital aspects in fighting against cyber criminals, militants and white collar criminals, especially on the Dark Web.
Even with the best infrastructure, technologies and legislation in place, the human factor that is subjective plays an important part to prevent data breaches. Therefore, the integrity of data handlers is critical to combating cyber threats.
The writer is Director, Institute of Crime & Criminology, HELP University
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times