ZAGREB, October 23, 2019 – Computer fraud has been on a steady rise in Croatia, the Police Directorate told a press conference on Wednesday on the occasion of European Cyber Security Month.
“In the first nine months of this year we recorded a rise in computer fraud of 10 percent compared to the same period last year. Most of the reported cases related to so-called CEO fraud where a person impersonating the CEO of the targeted company sends an email to the accounts department to transfer a sum of money to another account. There are also increasing reports of so-called Nigerian prince scams where naive citizens are asked to pay hefty sums,” said Renato Grgurić, chief of cyber security at the Police Directorate.
Given that perpetrators of such crimes are from African countries, police have difficulty tracking them down because of a poor exchange of information with police services in those countries, while information exchanges with EU countries via Europol are more than good, he said.
Citizens were advised to be extra cautious when sharing personal data on social media and to make online payments using only secure websites. “Any suspected attempt of fraud should be immediately reported to the police,” Grgurić said.
Svan Hlača of the National Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) underlined the importance of raising public awareness of cyber security, with emphasis on network and information security.
He said that this year the National CERT would focus on maintaining the high level of security for internet users and using modern information and communications technologies given that the number of non-technical incidents relating to fraud, unsolicited emails and harassment was on a steady rise.
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