MOI Urges People to Be Cautious About e-Frauds

The Peninsula -- Despite the fact that Qatar is among the countries which witness low electronic crime rate, the relevant authorities have advised people to protect themselves against e-frauds and never share personal information online with anyone.

“Don’t get victimised by scam messages and e-mails on winning lotteries, fake job offers, asking for assistance for wealth transfer and so on,” the Ministry of Interior (MOI) said on its official Twitter account.

First Lieutenant Awaida al-Nuaimi, from the Section for Combating Electronic Crimes, said: “Not all gangs practice fraudulent acts from inside Qatar; there are some gangs which practice such acts from outside the country. In this case, the authorities concerned cooperate with external bodies like Interpol to arrest them.”

Speaking to one of the local channels on prevention of cybercrime, he said that it is very important for people to protect their personal data.

He explained that there are new forms of crime with the development of technology, including electronic fraud (e-extortion) in which criminals carry out many acts electronically to achieve their goals of reaching the accounts of people.

MOI further said that cybercrime and e-fraud are the two types of cybercrimes that occur through modern means of communication. “Criminals use these means to harm others, through many methods to seize money, obtain information, photographs, particularly those pictures which can portray their victims in compromised conditions in order to blackmail them later.”

A number of social media users reacted to the ministry’s questions on its twitter account. Unfortunately, cybercrime, in its various forms, has become one of the new crimes which has turned to be a matter of concern for all countries and its danger lies in its border-less character,” Motaz Mohamed said.

He also said in his comment that he believed that the ignorance of the victim of cybercrime makes the job of criminals easy.

Another person, Hamad MA, commented: “We have noticed that the victim is often the one who opens the door to the perpetrators of these crimes because he does not know or is ignorant of the safety measures or because he overlooks necessary precautions.”

Meanwhile, the Cyber Security Center at MOI has established electronic link with 18 government institutions. The aim is to protect these entities from cyberattacks. The center targets to link 100 government and semi-government entities by the end of 2019.