TRA Conducts Cyber Blackmail Awareness Lecture

22/12/2015

The General Authority for Regulating the Telecommunication Sector (TRA) conducted a Cyber Blackmail awareness lecture in collaboration with the “Al Ameen Service” launched by Dubai police. Khalil Al Ali, Senior Official from Al Ameen Services, and Ghaith Al Mazaina, UAE TRA Security Quality Services Manager, participated in the lecture.

The lecture’s agenda encompassed a number of significant topics that have been highlighted with the aim of raising attendees’ awareness of the various methods that cyber criminals use to exploit their victims physically and financially. Speakers stressed on the importance of Cyber Blackmail prevention and taking all measures and precautions when using modern technology. They also explained to attendees how to use social media ideally to avoid the occurrence of any cases that may have serious consequences on the privacy and confidentiality of their personal data.

In this context, H.E. Hamad Obaid Al Mansoori, UAE TRA Director General, stated; “ Our efforts to fight Cyber Black mail are stemmed from our social responsibility and our keenness on protecting individuals of various age groups from opportunities and predators who are driven by their perverted instincts.."

“Organizing this workshop comes under the umbrella of the campaign and in line with the technological advancement that our country is witnessing, as the growing use of various communication channels makes people more prone to Cyber Blackmail. Criminals exploit the increasing use of these channels by various age groups in UAE in making money in an illegal way.” H.E. added

H.E Al Mansoori also stated that: ““We launched the Cyber Blackmail awareness campaign earlier this year in collaboration with our partners with the aim of raising awareness of the blackmail’s risks. We are currently conducting a survey with the victims of this phenomenon to have an insight about the Cyber Blackmail reality and assist entities in formulating the adequate policies to handle such incidents. The project is divided into two phases; the first phase is about prevention  and it focuses on explaining ways that internet users can use to protect their personal accounts on social media and avoid email hacking. The second phase will focus on ways to handle data leakage.” 

Speakers provided attendees with various advices that focused mainly on paying attention to the content that is published on internet pages. They also directed attendee’s attention to the fact that most of the cyber black mail criminals pretend to be women, and that most of video calls get recorded to be used against the victim later. Attendees were invited to participate in raising awareness of cybercrimes and advise friends to be cautious when using social media, in addition to preserving UAE culture and tradition even when using the internet.

Khalil Al Ali, Senior Official from Al Ameen Services, stated that: “The Cyber Blackmail campaign succeeded as it received massive attention from various printed and broadcasted media. By cyber blackmail we mean sexual blackmailing as 50% of the reasons behind using social media channels are related to chatting and this makes a lot of users prone to blackmailing. Blackmailing steps include identifying the target victims and then lure them to take inappropriate picture of them to blackmail them. We have an open society with more than 200 nationalities and 80 diverse cultures, therefore, we had to launch this campaign, as Al Ameen Service found out that 30 men from the GCC region where blackmailed. Moreover, we found out that 212 blackmailing calls were made during 2014.”

Al Ali also highlighted some of the shadow crimes, the kind of crimes that victims become afraid to report, and he said that the target group of this crimes is usually kids. He also stressed on the campaign goals which include protecting Cyber Blackmail victims, in addition to preventing this phenomenon through educating the public about the ideal ways to use technology.

Ghaith Al Mazaina, UAE TRA Security Quality Services Manager: “Social media channels and modern technology were developed to serve humanity and eliminate distances between people and institutions, but Cyber Blackmail criminals are using it negatively and they are exposing themselves to legal accountability. As the Federal Law No. (5) that was issued during 2012 to fight cybercrimes include imprisonment and fines as legal punishments for those who invade the privacy of others and black mail them.”