Japan's cybercrime cases jumped by 15.5% to a record 6,321 in
2008, the country's
National Police
Agency (NPA) said yesterday.
This was treble the number of cybercrimes of 2004, and included
internet-related cases of threat, libel, illegal access and fraud,
an NPA survey found.
While cases of threats and illegal access jumped 90% and 20%
respectively to 112 and 1,740, those of libel and fraud slid 23%
and 0.3% to 61 and 1,508 respectively, the survey said.
Commenting on the survey,
Finjan, a web gateway security
vendor, said the results did not bode well for e-crime in the
West.
Finjan's CTO Yuval Ben-Itzhak said, "Anecdotal evidence suggests
that the volume and value of cybercrime in the West has soared
again in 2008, and with the current economic recession, we expect
the number of internet scams, hacks and malware-driven infections
to accelerate in 2009."
Ben-Itzhak said hackers were attacking popular websites to
distribute malware. He said the Japlog.jp website, rated 41 in
Japan and 382 worldwide by Alexa, and Livedoor.jp, which was rated
6 in Japan and 70 worldwide by Alexa, were hacked within days of
each other. "Using a combination of obfuscated and ActiveX code,
they infected visitors with malware," he said.
"Website owners and consumers need to take extreme care to
protect themselves, their staff, customer lists and financial data
against cybercriminals," Ben-Itzhak added.
He said it was hard to extrapolate Japanese figures because
there is no Western equivalent collection of cybercrime data. "But
because the Japanese generally have a high degree of personal
morality, the increase in cybercrime raised a warning flag for the
West," he said.