Cyber crimes rose in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year, with more people reporting cases of BlackBerry handsets being hacked. More than 270 caseswere registered up to the end of June, Maj Rashid Lootah, the director of the cyber forensics administration at Dubai Police, said yesterday. That compares with 261 during the same period last year.
"The majority of the registered cases involved fraud and embezzlement, with 110 incidents," he said. "We have had 108 cases of telephone credit embezzlements as well as 70 cases of extortion, threats and insults over the internet and telephone. "Despite the numerous warnings issued by the authorities against potential online and telecommunication based frauds and scams, the number of cases is on the rise."
The major warned that BlackBerry-related crime was also rising. He said that a number of people who had added contacts randomly had reported that their phones were hacked. He said that the most common crime involved e-mails falsely promising prizes in return for the recipient's bank details.