By Peter Alagos/Business Reporter
The newly-enacted cybercrime law stands as a tough declaration against would-be perpetrators of that may pose a threat to Qatar’s national security or financial health, an official of Cisco has said.
“Qatar’s new cybercrime law is a very strong statement to the people that cybercrime is something that is being taken seriously in this country and that anyone who does any harm through the use of cyber infrastructure will be penalised very heavily. And we applaud that,” said Mohamed Hammoudi, general manager, Cisco Qatar.
Hammoudi made the statement yesterday on the sidelines of a roundtable discussion in Doha where he announced the staging of Cisco Connect Qatar, which would be held on November 18 at the St Regis Hotel in Doha.
He warned that there are many local and international entities that have specialised in other computer crimes such as industrial espionage and financial theft and should serve as a red flag to all countries, specifically in the GCC
region.
“With the whole geopolitical situation in the region, there are a lot of people who would like to do harm … There are threats and no one is debating that. There are whole industries that are built on people trying to steal information from other people,” he stressed.
Hammoudi said that there are people around the world who want to steal data so that they can misuse it. “They have the funds that can support their development of very complicated systems used for hacking that’s why you should always be ahead of them to ensure cyber safety.”
On Monday, HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani signed Law No.14 of 2014, which imposes stricter penalties on crimes on systems, programmes, information networks, and websites; content crimes; electronic forgery and fraud; electronic cards crime; and copyright infringement.
According to the Qatar News Agency (QNA), the law contains some 54 articles and will take effect immediately. It also includes several amendments to its predecessor to include stricter penalties.
Hammoudi also emphasised that security “is an evolving process,” and noted that it is a race between information technology (IT) firms and cyber criminals “who want to do harm, steal information, or extort money.”
“But security is also a behaviour, specifically from the end-user and not just from the vendor’s perspective. So if you give your password away or don’t change it on a regular basis then you are prone to
attacks,” he explained.
While stringent cyber laws and penalties have now been put in place, Hammoudi recommended that companies and individuals should always update their virus definitions, operating systems, networks, and app security settings, among others.
“What was safe last year is probably not safe today because you have people who may have cracked it (security). All vendors in the IT sector are doing their part but cybersecurity is a handshake between the suppliers and the end-users,”
Hammoudi noted.
