BEIRUT: Lebanon needs to pass new laws and upgrade existing legislations to check the rise of cybercrime phenomenon, a senior finance ministry official said Friday.
“In order to improve the cybercrime fight, we need to make amendments to the existing laws and introduce new legislations to incriminate these types of electronic crimes. We also need to create awareness to about these types of crimes,” Alain Bifani, the director general of the Finance Ministry, told participants in the cybercrime forum at the Coral Beach Hotel.
Cybercrime has risen considerably in the past few years in Lebanon although the financial losses from this practice are not very substantial.
The head of the Special Investigation Commission said in October that Lebanese banks were already taking extraordinary measures to check the rise of cybercrime in Lebanon.
“The number of executed and nonexecuted financial embezzlement through cybercrime in 2016 reached 137 operations. Eighty-six were executed successfully (or 60 percent of the total operations) and this caused a loss of $2.9 million. But out of the executed $2.9 million, banks were able to retrieve $740,000, or 25 percent of the embezzled money,” Abdul-Hafiz Mansour told a workshop on cybercrime.
Mansour warned that embezzled money can be transferred through different countries in less than 24 hours, and that in many occasions it becomes impossible to trace or retrieve the money because the individuals who are behind the scheme are anonymous.
Bifani said that globalization and the rapid progress in technology have paved the way for innovative electronic crimes.
He added that cybercrime and other similar crimes pose a serious threat not only to institutions and banks but governments as well.
The President of the Association of Banks in Lebanon Joseph Torbey said the number of internet users around the world has exceeded 3 billion and this has raised the pattern of electronic crimes and financial embezzlement that have affected most of the financial institutions and individuals.
He added that the total cost of cybercrimes and embezzlement around the world has reached some $455 billion.
“Facts have shown that those behind these types of crimes have high technological skills. They were able to commit their crimes without any trace,” Torbey said.
Bankers said that it is very difficult to retrieve the embezzled money because the culprits transfer the cash to different countries before they reach the final destinations.
Lebanon has not yet passed laws on e-commerce and e-banking.
Torbey praised the efforts of the Central Bank and SIC to create awareness about these types of electronic crimes.
He added that the financial authorities have recently released an awareness guideline for the protection from acts of crimes by electronic mails.
