Qatar & UNODC collaborate to combat cybercrime

Doha: Qatar and UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) are working in close cooperation to combat cybercrime and enhancing information security, said a top official of the UN body which is responsible for combating transnational crimes.

A lot of work that the UNODC and Qatar have been doing for over the last four-five years is preventive measures, which include educating to over 200,000 kids, including school children, who are set to get acquainted about the fast growing nature of cybercrimes and potential threat to the digital world.

“We are working on capacity building for preventing and policing with a lot of governments, including Qatar.

And we really thank and appreciate the investment and support Qatari side has extended,” Neil J Walsh, Chief, Cybercrime and Anti-Money Laundering Section and Division for Treaty Affairs at UNODC told The Peninsula on the sidelines of an event in Doha, yesterday.

Speaking at Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q) Dean Lecture Series, Walsh added: “We are also trying to help the kids understand, through pedagogical approach, about the nature of cybercrime and threat and enable them to be safe net users as part of the preventive measure.”

However, the UN official also noted that developing preventive measures is exceptionally difficult task as the cybercriminals keep on changing their methodologies of attacks.

He said that investing in information security system and preventive measures against cyber attacks, which can be global in nature, is the only way that can help sustain economic development and national security.

Asked if he thinks governments should establish separate entities like city police and defence forces, to combat cybercrimes and malware threat, which are most often come from anonymous sources and organized criminals which can be state-sponsored, he said that different countries are taking different approach and a lot of countries are taking the opportunity that already exists.

“For instance, Interpol (International Criminal Police Organization) that facilitates international police cooperation, there is a method of coordinating and sharing information. Similarly we see governments designing national cyber centres or capacity building centres that helps to make sure that people across the government, whatever agency they may be, are on the same wavelength about the same threat,” said the UN official, who is coordinating with governments around the world.

He highlighted that whatever the way any government chooses to combat the cybercrime that requires effective security, intelligence and policing. There should be a fusion and the involvement of the private sector and academia for more informed decision to address the challenges.

With the advancement in technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI), the nature of the cybercrime and malware threat has been changing swiftly. The criminals are more sophisticated, equipped and more organized in the Dark Net (or Darknet).

Darknet is an umbrella term describing the portions of the Internet purposefully not open to public view and often associated with the encrypted where illicit trading takes place and criminals are hard to be detected.

“Things have changed dramatically over the last 10 years. For example 10 years ago we didn’t have cryptocurrencies, but today we have more than 2,000, and number still growing. So it is difficult to predict how the nature of cybercrimes will change over the next coming years. But what we need to make sure that governance and infrastructure capabilities need to be agile and more flexible to respond accordingly,” said Walsh.