PETALING JAYA: Amendments to laws tackling online scams, while helping victims, could be more preventive than reactive, say experts.
The government could consider more preventive measures to stop scams from even taking off, said founder and chief executive officer of cybersecurity firm LGMS Berhad, Fong Choong Fook.
“One way would be for the allocation of mobile numbers to be associated with a real identity. The problem now is that scammers can easily get these numbers.
“If the government emphasises locking down numbers to a certain identity, it will not be that easy for scammers to use mobile phones to perform scams,” he said, adding that China required all phone numbers to be registered with a valid identity.
Fong said that stricter laws were needed to penalise criminals.
“Scams involve individuals at several layers, with some behind the scenes as well as those borrowing accounts as mule accounts.
“The current penalties may be insufficient to deter people from lending out their accounts (as mules) without knowing the consequences,” he said.
He said the government should also look at another mechanism for the public to report cases of suspected mule accounts.
“This will not be easy as it requires close coordination. Banks themselves have to find an effective way to monitor account holders’ activities and detect mule accounts,” he said.
Mule accounts, he said, could possibly be detected by authorities, noting how they can be seen through unusual financial transactions.
“Let’s say someone is receiving inbound transactions of RM5,000 every few minutes. This should raise suspicions,” he said.
Universiti Sains Malaysia cybersecurity expert Assoc Prof Dr Selvakumar Manickam said that preventive measures should be taken to further mitigate scam cases.
“This is definitely one of the steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of scams.”
“On the other hand, the government also has to look at proactive measures to prevent such crimes,” he said.
Telecommunication providers, he said, also had a bigger role to play in mitigating fraud cases by blocking numbers that were found to be linked to fraud transactions.
Bank authorities should also pay attention to suspicious transactions, Selvakumar said, adding that they should call the account holder to confirm whether the transaction was genuine.
Anti-crime activist Dave Avran said that while reexamining the relevant law is good, getting victims money back may be difficult in reality.
“The money (cash) that is cheated from victims is very quickly used up. The logic here is ‘easy come, easy go’. So, while it is good to look at amending relevant laws, I don’t think money that has been stolen from victims can be returned so easily.”
