The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Adviser for the ministry of LGRD Mohammed Anwarul Iqbal said the cost of cyber crime was a burden on the developing countries and a law was necessary to combat the crime.

Quoting International Law News the adviser said cyber crime had grown to be larger than illicit drug sales worldwide and the analysis estimate that online fraud fetches 105 billion US dollars in 2007 alone.

He was speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the first Regional Cyber Crime Seminar 2007 at the Dhaka Sheraton Hotel yesterday.

The three-daylong seminar will be participated by experts from Australia, Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Nepal and host Bangladesh under the Police Reform Programme of the UN and support of the Australian Federal Police.

The adviser said cyber crime, as a transnational crime, is a global issue with a global impact and seminar of this kind would help the experts to combat the crime.

In recent years cyber crime is a phenomenon that is well known in the technologically developed countries where computer hackers break passwords and leak important information of person, organisation and even state. Hackers also attack banks and take away money by breaking passwords.

In Bangladesh the range of cyber crime is still not alarming but the number of Internet users are growing rapidly, so it poses a great threat to the country as already reports of pornographic sites were found.

Abdul Karim, secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Douglas Foskett, Australian High Commissioner to Dhaka, Larry Maramis, Deputy Country Director, UNDP Bangladesh, Naba Bikram K Tripura, Additional Inspector General and National Project Director of the Police Reform programme and Hubert Staberhofer, Programme Manager, PRP were present at the ceremony.