Cybercrime and Its Impact in the GCC Region

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Table of Contents

Introduction
What is the Impact of Cybercrime?
What Are the Examples of Cybercrime in the GCC?
What are the GCC’s Cyber Security Laws?
GCC Challenges Regarding Cybercrime – Expert Opinion
Summary and Analysis
Works Cited

Introduction

The introduction of the information and communication technologies nowadays offers a great range of advantages for the society, especially for the financial sector. Unlimited access to the information and communication technologies (ICT) supports freedom of speech as well as it promotes online banking and the usage of various mobile data services that ease the lives of many. However, such a growth of information technologies does not exist without any possible risks. Due to the fact that the majority of essential services like water supply and electricity depend on a smooth functioning of the ICT, there has been many attempts on hindering their performance and therefore cause harm to the society.

It is a commonly known fact that the attacks against the Internet infrastructure and services take place on a regular basis. Hacking and online fraud are the primary examples of attacks on the ICT. Furthermore, the financial damage caused by such attacks is reported to be quite substantial. The estimated annual cost of the global attacks is approximately one hundred billion dollars (Go-Gulf par. 1).

What is Cybercrime?

Cybercrime can be defined as a range of crimes committed through the use of the Internet and computers as tools or victims. Cybercrime can range from spamming to fraud and include criminal trespass to the global security systems or theft of corporate and governmental secrets. Anything from downloading illegal music and video files to stealing money from online bank accounts is classified as cybercrime. However, cybercrime is not limited to monetary offenses, creating viruses and posting confidential information online is also considered cybercrime.

The majority of cybercrimes cannot be differentiated into one specific category of crime, which contributes to the limited capacity of cybercrime records. The Internet Crime Complaint Center is a primary body responsible for compiling and releasing the statistical reports on cybercrime. By using statistics, the analysts are able to prepare information on the trends and rates of cybercrime (National Crime Prevention Council 1).

The issues of cybercrime and cybersecurity cannot be separated from the general concerns of the global community. This is supported by the fact that the United Nations General Assembly resolution related to cybersecurity points at cybercrime as one of the major challenges for the global security systems that exist within the international dimension. For example, before reaching a recipient, an e-mail containing illegal information can pass through a series of countries. Therefore, when investigating such instances of cybercrime, international cooperation between countries is of the highest importance. In addition, many cybercrimes occur due to the fact that modern technologies are the same everywhere. Therefore, standardization allows for the same protocols being used across the world (ITU 2).

What is the Impact of Cybercrime?

Background

As shown by the recent events, cybercrime in the financial sphere is a pervasive issue; and one from which the assets of the GCC countries are not protected to a complete extent. It has been estimated that the cost of the global cybercrime is greater than the GDP of eighty percent of countries throughout the world. In addition, the number and nature of criminals conducting cyber offenses is constantly increasing to include not only individuals but criminal syndicates, the organization of terrorists, and even countries. The inexpensive tools for conducting cybercrime are nowadays widely available; therefore, the threat actors rarely have to resort to any unknown methods to conduct cybercrime. Keeping the issue of cybercrime under control is becoming more difficult as the technological advances develop. Nowadays criminals are able to use many sophisticated methods for committing fraud or stealing funds or personal information. In addition, some criminals prefer to collaborate and work in cooperation in order to commit fraud on a larger scale. Given all these facts, the efforts towards preventing cyber crime a predominantly technological, which means that their effect only lasts until a solution to deal with the technological prevention methods is developed. Therefore, the advances in the technological sphere are challenged by the rapid pace with which cyber criminals are able to develop their new methods of fraud.

Emerging Threat in the GCC Region

The most important findings gathered from the PWC survey suggest that cybercrime is now ranked second in the list of all reported economic crimes in the Middle East. While the global statistics indicate that 24% of companies that went through economic crime reported cybercrime, the GCC region reports 37% (PWC 15). The most common types of cybercrime affected the spheres of computer networking, applications, and systems. However, data stored by third parties as well as mobile devices can also become targets to cybercrime.

The recently occurred cases suggest that any company can be affected by cybercrime. Two of the largest gas and oil companies in the Middle Eastern region reported an attack on their networking system, causing thousands of separate computers disruption in their operation. Between 2012 and 2013 the financial sector across the region also reported instances of cybercrime in Oman and United Arab Emirates (PWC 15).

The motivation for cyber-attacks in the region can include financial, political, personal, and ideological. For example, in 2014 the oil companies in UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar received anonymous threats of cyber-attacks from the politically motivated group of hackers (Nagraj par. 1). The threat was made due to the hackers being unsatisfied with the US being used as the currency for selling and buying oil in the region. Therefore, companies are not the only targets that could have been affected by the attacks, governments were at high risk, too. However, such threats are rarely substantiated by the actual attacks.

One of the primary characteristics of cybercrime as an evolving threat is the pace with which a crime can be performed, causing the crime victims a substantial loss of financial assets or data before they find out that an attack has been performed. Therefore, the effectiveness of many responses to cyber-attacks is completely diminished. In many cases the system a company relies on when working can often become the main tool use against it by a cybercriminal who can then change or hid his or her identity.

Therefore, the fundamental challenge for the Gulf region and its businesses is understanding the risks of cyber-attacks and keeping up with their pace. Very often computer networks used by the companies are not complicated enough to account for the risks associated with the disruptions caused by much more sophisticated tools cybercriminals use. It is important to mention that some local governments have already taken some action to manage and prevent cybercrime, with the 2012 UAE’s Cyber Crimes Law and the 2012 Saudi Arabia’s Arab Cybercrime Agreement leading the action.

What are the Cybercrime Costs?

Due to a variety of factors, measuring the actual cost of cybercrime is difficult. These factors include the cybercrime effect on the safety systems the damage caused to the reputation of a company, interference with the business operations, and loss of opportunities. According to the recent survey conducted by PWC, when asked to estimate the costs of cybercrime effects on the business in the past two years, 35% of respondents could not give a specific answer while 40% believed that their business did not suffer from cybercrime (16).

The received results indicate the significant scale of the issue. In the majority of instances, the companies that never reported their financial loss due to cybercrime are usually unaware that they have been victims of such fraud or have probably incorrectly quantified the cost of the cyber-attacks. Such statistics are not unusual since the mentioned findings on the cybercrime in the GCC region coincide with the global reports that also mentioned forty percent of companies not reporting any financial loss caused by cybercrime (PWC 17).

The Middle Eastern survey also included respondents who did report their financial loss from cybercrime; however, the numbers are quite low. Six percent of respondents claimed that their loss had been approximately 1 million dollars while two percent reported the loss between 5 and 100 million dollars. On the basis of the report, it can be concluded that the financial damage caused by cybercrime in the GCC region could be far more substantial that the majority of the companies report.

What Are the Examples of Cybercrime in the GCC?

UAE Example

The statistics of Dubai have indicated a significant increase of 88% in the overall number of cybercrimes in 2013 compared to 2012. In 2013 the Dubai Police investigated under one thousand five hundred cases of cybercrime, which is three times more than the number of crimes reported in 2011 (Hasbini par. 4).

Due to the significant increases in the Internet use (UAE penetration of 92%), the transfer of personal or corporate information has become the easiest it has ever been. In the country, the most used online services are e-shopping, e-banking, e-bills, and e-government transactions. All of the mentioned services have proven to be very convenient for the users; however, there is a significant threat of cybercrime.

According to Altaher’s article in Gulf News, the United Arab Emirates is nowadays the target of approximately 5% of the worldwide attacks (par. 1). Moreover, the rate of such attacks has increased by five hundred percent since 2011. The expert opinion expressed by Rabih Dabbousi, the senior vice-president of Dark Matter, a cyber security company, suggested that “Cybercrime follows the money. The money of financial transactions in the UAE, the establishments of financial free zones and the overall appeal of investing in the country are only some reasons why banks and other financial institutions are constantly being attacked” (qtd. in Altaher par. 3). Furthermore, Dabbousi also explained that the oil and gas industry of the region is the second target for the cyber attacks.

One of the primary points that put the United Arab Emirates on the radar of the cyber criminals is the technological advances targeted at increasing the quality of the population’s life. The differentiation and innovation strategies contribute to the steady increases in the cyber attacks. Therefore, the country is becoming more and more visible from the economic and social competitive perspective, which attracts cyber criminals (Altaher par. 9).

Saudi Aramco Attacks

The 2012 cyber attacks on Saudi Aramco, the official Saudi Arabian Oil Company, had a tremendous impact on the way global companies now approach the issue of cybercrime. The computer network of the company was infected by the Shamoon virus that affected thirty thousand Windows-operating computers. The response from the company was not effective despite the vast resources available. It took Saudi Aramco under two weeks in order to restore the network and recover from the damage caused the company.

The main purpose of the Shamoon virus was the complete deletion of all data containing in the hard drivers of corporate computers. Despite the fact that the virus attack did not cause any oil spills or explosions, the attack did affect the operations of the company as well as the loss of some production data. The US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta described the virus being very sophisticated since there is a very small number of countries or organizations capable of performing such an attack (Bronk and Tikk-Ringas par. 3). Because the virus rendered all computer useless as well as greatly undermined the operational capabilities of Saudi Aramco the financial impact of the attack is incomparable to that of the U.S. Government hacks of the fingerprint database. The Cutting Sword of Justice took responsibility for the attacks and referred to the “crimes and atrocities” Saudi Aramco committed as the main motivation. However, there were suspicions that the cyber attack was sponsored by the Iranian regime which had also been subjected to the same virus attacks prior to Saudi Aramco.

According to the response from the international community, the Saudi Aramco attacks were the “wake-up call” for the global businesses that do not treat the threats of cyber attacks seriously. If a similar attack were to be performed with other critical global infrastructures, the effect on the communication networks, financial markets, as well as health and safety services would have been tremendous (Info Security par. 6).

What are the GCC’s Cyber Security Laws?

The governments of the GCC region have recently adopted new laws that were drafted collectively. Despite the fact that the majority of the member states already have their own cybercrime laws, the Gulf is becoming much more integrated economically, politically, and culturally, therefore requiring a unified set of laws that can be applied throughout the region.

The newly adopted law is very similar to the one in Oman and to a large extent covers all technology-associated acts that fall under the category of cybercrimes. These acts include e-documents forging, stealing credit card information, creation and distribution of viruses, cyber terrorism, communications interception, hacking, accessing the e-system without authorization, as well as other acts that put the integrity of private and corporate information at risk (Aziz par. 5).

The cybercrime law was adopted in order to reach the following five objectives:

Provision of high-quality control and management of the data protection services;
Raising awareness of the cyber security importance;
Implementation of various methods of ensuring the cyber security in the region;
Creating a nationwide plan for facing the risks associated with cybercrime;
Making sure that the member states are committed to the task of eliminating the instances of cybercrime.

The United Arab Emirates is the GCC state that has the most comprehensive laws regarding cybercrime – the UAE-Law No. 5 of 1012 concerning Combating Information Technology Crimes, which replaced the previous Cyber Crimes Law adopted by the government in 2006. The 2012 UAE Cyber Crime Law has added a range of new crimes and included the offenses related to country’s obligations in the context of international treaties (Jairwdeh par. 8). In addition, the 2012 laws included a much higher penalty for the offenses compared to those outlined in the previous 2006 law.

The 2012 law was the first legislative document that included and codified a full range of offenses that can be implemented with the use of the Internet; furthermore, the sentences for individuals that were found guilty of cybercrime are also included. The new additions to the punishable under the law crimes include the promotion or distribution of pornographic material, indecent acts, and gambling on the Internet. Therefore, this law encompasses a range of possible violations that can be easily performed with the use of the Internet.

Qatar has also been working towards establishing cyber crime laws beneficial for outlining primary principles related to managing this type of crime. Issued in 2014, the Qatar’s Anti-Cybercrime Law aggressively targeted a large range of technology-related crimes by means of imposing significant penalties for those proven guilty. The types of cyber crimes included in the law range from the criminal acts committed in relation to software and data specifically to the usage of various methods and systems that facilitate the actions targeted to blackmail and defame other individuals.

One of the most significant aspects of Qatar’s Cybercrime law is its addressing the cross-border cybercrime. In order to prevent cybercrimes occurring across the border but may be linked to Qatar, the law provides specific rules related to extradition of suspected criminals that committed the unlawful acts classified as cybercrime.

The law distinguishes five separate types of cybercrime, which include the infringement of intellectual property rights, the electronic transaction with cards (forging cards, unlicensed production, unauthorized usage), fraud and forgery of electronic documents, content crimes (terrorism, false news, child pornography and social principles infringement), and hacking (Salt and Doha par. 3)

GCC Challenges Regarding Cybercrime – Expert Opinion

The expert opinion on the issue of cyber security is provided by Megha Kumar, the head of the software research and advisory practice at IDC in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa. As the manager in research, Kumar has been the primary person responsible for delivering and controlling project across a variety of technological levels (storage, IT security, analytics, databases, etc.) at the same time with actively participating in the collaboration with vendors that wished to improve their competitive strategies on the market.

Challenge 1

Megha Kumar, the senior analyst at IDC MEA, stated that GCC countries require much more effective collaboration when it comes to the issue of cybercrime. As a specialist in the sphere of cyber security, Kumar underlined that with the growth of international companies in the region that collaborate with customers and partners around the globe, the need for high quality cyber security systems has skyrocketed significantly. Due to the quick pace of technological advances development, many companies have become targets of cybercriminals that want to achieve either a financial gain or disrupt the operation of the companies to damage their reputation. In addition, the increased concern about the issue of cybercrime is evidenced by the growth in spending on security software across all sectors.

The expert underlines that many of the advanced threats posed to the security systems of the region can remain unnoticed for a long period of time and thus cause major damage. This fact contributes to the overall complexity of the challenge. Furthermore, the developing countries are currently characterized by the second and third technology platforms merging to become one entity, which also poses a great threat to the security of the cyber space.

Cybercrime is largely influenced by the financial motivation; however, there is also an issue when hackers try to deface an information network by promoting an unfavorable political agenda which does not go along with the commonly practiced views and ideas. Therefore, the implications for cybercriminal activity are not purely financially-driven, any platform can become a subject of an attack targeted at damaging the reputation.

Challenge 2

Currently, the information technology security concerns are not limited to the GCC companies looking for various ways to secure their networks and operational data. According to Kumar, governments also show concerns when it comes to protecting valuable information. With the improvements of the cross-country levels of cooperation and networking, companies and governments become the main victims of cybercrimes, which have also been growing and expanding in terms of sophistication and the damage they can cause to the current economic environment. The cybercriminal activity such as identity thefts and virus distribution is increasingly becoming more motivated financially, as evidenced by the significant spread of online financial scamming and illegal transactions that take place online. Furthermore, the methods of cybercrime have expanded into a broad variety – criminals take advantage of the vulnerabilities that exist within the social networking and hosting sites in order to get confidential information about the users and then manipulate such information to gain the financial outcome.

Kumar underlined the fact that GCC countries had experienced cyber-attacks of this kind. Bank ATM’s hackings, the Ghostnet attacks on the Kuwait and Bahrain in 2009, the defacement of publication websites, attacks on the oil companies’ networks are just some of the examples.

In order to protect clients from identity theft and credit card forging, the GCC banking services are significantly investing into security and authentication solutions. The providers of telecommunication services are also investing in establishing new security solutions for protecting their customers from fraudulent acts. Nevertheless, the organizations within the operating industries should not be the only actors responsible for establishing cyber security governments are the primary bodies that should lead the process of securing the cyberspace from criminal activities.

The cyberspace in the GCC region is under the monitor and filter from any content that does not match the social or political ideas adherent to the region. In a similar way, governments should look into securing the Internet space against cybercriminal activity. It is highly important since attacks that occur on a larger scale can damage the communication networks in the region and sometimes even lead to physical and financial losses to private users or corporate bodies. While the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have been proactive with their approach towards cybercrime, other GCC countries are still challenged with adequately addressing the issue on the legislative basis. The establishment of such agencies as CERT (computer emergency response teams), unique task forces that specifically deal with cybercrime, and campaigns for raising the awareness of the cyber security importance are some of the examples of how GCC countries can start addressing the problem of cybercrime, eliminating it in the future. Therefore, the GCC governments are advised to further collaborate to tackle the threat and damage cybercrime can cause since such damage should not be viewed as something limited by borders.

Challenge 3

Megha Kumar also discussed another major challenge for the GCC information technology sector – the issue of software piracy. According to the 2011 “BSA Global Software Piracy Map”, the rate of software privacy in the GCC is:

51% in Saudi Arabia with the commercial value of $449 million;
61% in Oman with the commercial value of $36 million;
37% in the United Arab Emirates with the commercial value of $208 million;
50% in Qatar with the commercial value of $62 million.

Therefore, the region is highly exposed to software piracy which has its own specific impact on the cyber security. Despite to the fact that pirated software is much more vulnerable to viruses, companies, and private individuals often use it due to the fact that it is much cheaper. Nevertheless, the software that has been manipulated by a third party can offer an unauthorized entry for various bots, viruses, and hackers, which can easily disrupt the performance of the system. Furthermore, pirated software is not limited to operating systems, games, and other applications it can also include the security software intended to fight against cyber-attacks. Because many users do not wish to pay for security system upgrades and full versions of the software and opt for a cheaper pirate alternative, they make their computers vulnerable to many kinds of dangerous attacks that undermine the integrity of private or corporate data.

GCC governments are currently trying to address the issue of pirated software due to the significant pressure that comes from software developers that work in the region. While some primary steps have been taken by the GCC governments, there is very much to be done in the future in order to take the issue of software pirating under control (Kumar par. 5).

Challenge 4

The fourth challenge in establishing cyber security in the region relates to a gap that exists between businesses and the information technologies the businesses employ. According to Megha Kumar, the opinions of the decisions makers in the IT departments so not coincide with the IT’s understanding of how information security should be managed. In the majority of cases, Chief Information Officers see the lack of skills as the main disadvantage of the IT department while the information technology managers feel that there is very little support from the higher authorities in terms of implementing new solutions for information security. Therefore, there is a major lack of cohesive strategies for cyber security that are acceptable for everyone. In order to implement a much more extensive range of information security strategies, the existing gap should be eliminated (Gulf News Technology par. 3).

The GCC organizations are currently working towards employing much more sophisticated solutions for information technology security in order to manage the issues of hacking, traffic network, as well as little user awareness. Apart from that, many organizations are trying to add information security training into their corporate agenda thus raising awareness of cyber security initiatives that address the challenge of security attacks.

The survey that included Chief Information Officers has shown that fifty-seven percent of the participants admitted that sustaining cyber security at the same time with coming up with innovative solutions was the biggest priority they had to deal with in the year of 2014 (Gulf News Technology par. 6). Furthermore, half of the respondents stated that ensuring smooth information security in their department was the second major challenge to be addressed. Thus, it is evident that many organizations in the GCC region are majorly concerned about how performance can be sustained alongside with their business availability. Additionally, many admitted that the rate of IT solutions investments evolves at a much lower speed in comparison with the speed of the security landscape.

Chief Information Officers also mentioned additional challenges that exist within their area of expertise. Namely, the improvements in IT assets utilization, connectivity management, and systems availability are just some of the additional aspects of concern. Contrary to the opinions expressed by the Chief Information Officers, IT managers mentioned that the sophistication of the cyber-attacks has increased exponentially while the support from the executive management decreased. Another enterprise security challenge related to no cohesive security strategies, which has been agreed upon collectively by the executives and the IT managers.

The results of the survey indicated that the GCC companies are majorly investing into various initiatives for information security since the challenges they face are exponential. In relation to this, in 2014 companies predominantly invested into firewall systems, detection of intrusion, as well as attack and data loss prevention systems. Kumar also mentioned that there is an increased focus on deploying firewalls of the next generation, which are able to offer a much detailed look at how the enterprise information can be better protected (Gulf News Technology par. 10).

Challenge 5

The last challenge related to establishing cyber security in the GCC region is associated with the economic crisis. There is an unfortunate trend, which suggests that software piracy and cybercrime will be greatly deprioritized when the governments deal with the impact of the economic crisis, especially the financial and political challenges. Nevertheless, it is highly important that the governments address the problem with a higher intensity at such times since the sphere of information technology will be much more susceptible to possible fraudulent acts. The implementation of greater efforts for enterprises and consumer education on the importance of cyber security policies will not only benefit in creating a much more effective environment for business but also ensure that individuals and corporations are protected against cyber-attacks at the time when the government is dealing with other challenges.

In particular, countries like Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia has always positioned themselves as the safest and attractive platforms to do business. Therefore, for them to increase their attractiveness for any type of business (local or international), it is crucial for them to improve the regulation of cyber security policies and implementation of laws targeted at protecting the private and corporate assets from the instances of the cyber-criminal activity.

On the other hand, the current situation in Qatar regarding the issue of information technology security is extremely volatile. The volatility is experienced not only in terms of malware but also in the aspect of hacking instances, cyber warfare, and persistent threats that has become much more complex and advanced than it used to be. Furthermore, the advances in big data, cloud computing, and mobile media also greatly contribute to the volatility of cyber-security when it comes to its management, implementation, and development. According to Kumar, Qatar’s businesses should perform an evaluation of the investments that go towards the information technology security sector at the same time with rationalizing the costs, protecting the existing assets as well as coming up with innovative security solutions. Thus, the businesses should address the sustainability of their security systems while making sure that such systems are the main enablers and supporters of their operation.

For countries like Oman, the main challenge in managing the issue of cybercrime relates to the budget constraints. Due to the fact that many companies are trying to get as many resources as they can through downsizing their headcount, the issue of enterprise software security is becoming an even larger challenge that it has already been. In the course of downsizing the employee count in a company, there is a potential risk of some dissatisfied workers taking important information with them to use against the company in the future. Thus, the challenge of cyber security remains under-addressed and overlooked at many levels of business life.

Megha Kumar concluded with the statement that “as the GCC region recovers, the governments will need to ensure not just political and economic stability but also digital stability to sustain growth levels” (par. 7).

Summary and Analysis

According to the findings from the conducted research, the GCC region is currently highly vulnerable to a variety of cybercrime that is being imposed upon different business spheres. The evolving coverage of the Internet, the widespread availability of technology, and the lack of commitment to the problem of cybercrime are the main issues that challenge the business and the governmental areas of GCC.

The cyberattack performed against the corporate software of Saudi Aramco can be classified as the ‘wake-up call’ for the GCC to start taking the issue of cybercrime seriously. In order to keep control over cyber security as well as manage the financial or reputational damage a company has experienced, the GCC countries are working cooperatively to establish a set legislative framework that includes the types of crimes classified as cybercrime and the punishment the perpetrators will receive if proven guilty. In addition, such a framework implies mutual cooperation between member states in terms of extradition of cyber criminals.

It has been concluded that the calculation of costs that appear as a result of cybercrime is a complicated process. The factors like the cybercrime’s effect on the safety systems, the damage caused to the reputation of a company, interference with the business operations, and loss of opportunities are very hard to estimate. Additionally, many businesses do not know the financial impact cybercrime caused to their companies. According to the survey conducted by PWC, when asked to estimate the costs of cybercrime effects on the business in the past two years, 35% of respondents could not give a specific answer while 40% believed that their business did not suffer from cybercrime.

Therefore, the lack of awareness about the issue of cybercrime contributes to the challenges the GCC region faces. In addition to the fact that not many businesses are able to estimate the costs of cyber-attacks on them, the research reported that there is a lack of cooperation between the IT managers in companies and the Chief Information Officers due to the different views on how the issue of cybersecurity should be addressed.

Due to the fact that currently cybercrime is ranked second in the list of the most concerning threats, the future direction of the government as well as corporations should move towards mutual cooperation in terms of establishing cyber security and eliminating possible damages it causes to the overall financial industry. To deal with the issue effectively, there should be a comprehensive evaluation of the previously-implemented methods of cybersecurity, as well as employment of skilled professional in the sphere of IT who can bring innovative solutions to the table.

Similar to the way GCC countries should work cooperatively towards establishing cybersecurity on each level, there is a positive prospect for working with other international organizations and governments that have much more experience in protecting businesses and customers from the possible cyber attacks.

Because the economic and financial sphere of the GCC region is evolving to meet the expectations of the global and local communities, the changes in the area of cyber-security should go hand-in-hand with the changing environment. The financial sector at large suffers from the cybercrime because of the incompatibility of the available crime tools and the systems they attack. Therefore, the massive emphasis should be put on creating innovative cyber-security measures that will not be as vulnerable to many types of cybercrime.