Experts in the field of cyber-crime on Friday, urged strong partnerships between the public and private sectors to create a safer digital landscape, at the United Nations Crime Congress under way in Doha, Qatar.
"Cybercrime has become an established threat to the security of States and individuals alike," Loide Lungameni, Chief of the Organized Crime and Illicit Trafficking Branch in the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told a high-level event on the topic.
Lungameni warned those gathered for the 13th UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice that in the near future, due to ever-increasing global connectivity, it will become hard to imagine a form of cyber-crime - or perhaps any crime - that does not involve electronic evidence.
According to UNODC, threats to Internet safety have spiked dramatically in recent years, and cyber-crime now impacts more than 431 million adult victims globally.
Cybercrime exists in many forms, the most common being identity-related offenses. This occurs by 'phishing' (deceiving Internet users into giving their personal information), the dissemination of 'malware' (software that disrupts computer systems and collects personal or sensitive information) and hacking (illegally accessing someone's computer remotely).
The Internet has become a breeding ground for criminal activity related to copyright and intellectual property rights, as well as offenses such as child pornography and abuse material.
UNODC is involved in providing technical assistance to law enforcement authorities, prosecutors, and the judiciary, in three regions of the world, in Eastern Africa, South-East Asia, and Central America to tackle cyber-crime.
UNODC works with international partners in carrying out this technical assistance, including the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the Commonwealth Secretariat, the World Bank, Interpol, and Europol.
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