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Malta’s Police Opened 4,508 Cybercrime Investigations Over Three Years

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Police have opened 4,508 cybercrime investigations since the start of 2017, Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri has revealed. 

Speaking following a parliamentary question from Ivan Bartolo, Camilleri explained that the criminal investigations focus on computer misuse, fraud, threats, violence, pornography and sexual offences. 

There has been an explosion in cybercrime investigations over the past few years with more and more people making daily use of the internet. Improve police resources have also helped in better identifying and tackling cybercrime. 

On average, police investigate about 1,500 cases of cybercrime per year. This used to be just 50 in 2003. 

Cybercrime actually increased over the COVID-19 pandemic, with Lovin Malta receiving several reports of internet users experiencing some form of cybercrime including one instance in which a hacker tried to coerce $1,900 off a Maltese man.

Cybercriminals have also targetted major Maltese companies. A cyber attack on Melita led to an outage across several localities, while BOV lost millions in a hack.

If you do come across some form of cybercrime, The Malta Police Force suggests to do the following:

  •  Don’t panic. Your password was probably publicised in an old data leak. Criminals bank on the fact that most people use common passwords for their accounts and rarely change them.
  • Don’t reply to these messages. Ignore such messages as any attempt to engage is another opportunity for the criminal to put further pressure on you.
  •  Don’t send any money. In such cases, criminals wouldn’t have any private information – they are simply putting pressure on you to get you to comply with their requests.

Have you experienced some sort of cybercrime? Let us know in the comments below

 

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Julian is the former editor of Lovin Malta and has a particular interest in politics, the environment, social issues, and human interest stories.

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