7 billion FCFA lost to cyber scamming in 13 years - ANTIC DG.

The information was revealed by the Director General of the National Agency for Information and Communication Technologies, known by its French acronym ANTIC, Prof Ebot Ebot Enaw.

He said scamming represented about 80% of cybercrime cases in the country in 2021, with the financial losses estimated at 7 billion FCFA since 2010. 

Prof Ebot Ebot was speaking in Limbe, South West Region, in his opening address during a three-day seminar by ANTIC.

The seminar was to raise the awareness of magistrates and judicial police officers of the region on cyber security and cybercrimes.

Addressing the stakeholders of law enforcement in the region, the Director General enumerated other cybercrimes common in the cyberspace in Cameroon.

He mentioned phishing, which involves leveraging social engineering by spoofing an email or website address of an institution and exploiting human emotions to trick victims into releasing sensitive information like passwords or credit card details. 

Phishing, he added, accounted for about 27.8% of cybercrime cases in Cameroon in 2021 and witnessing an exponential increase with the introduction of e-banking services by banks.

Other cybercrimes inundating the cyberspace include identity theft, skimming, and mobile money scams used for cyber blackmail or money extortion from victims; stealing credit card details and manipulating victims into transferring money from their mobile accounts to cybercriminals.

“…nearly 6,000 incidents of identity theft have been reported wherein cybercriminals usurp the identities of high profile state dignitaries and state institutions, of which 4,000 have been closed down, thanks to the collaboration between ANTIC and Facebook,” Prof Ebot Ebot said.

Raising awareness, continuous training

Given the widespread nature of cybercrimes, he encouraged participants to build a culture that leverages permanent awareness raising as well as continuous training of actors of the cyber security chain, especially magistrates and judicial police officers mandated to investigate, track and prosecute cybercriminals.

“…magistrates are key players in the fight against cybercrime in the sense that the final decisions in a criminal case rest with them and the quality of their decisions have a direct bearing on the work we do at ANTIC, acts as a deterrent and helps build trust and confidence in the entire judicial process,” Prof Ebot Ebot noted.

ANTIC assists stakeholders in the judicial process by providing judges with scientifically proven digital evidence based on metadata, which informs the decision-making process of judges. 

This involves collecting and analysing digital evidence with a view to identifying, tracking and locating cybercriminals in both the real world and the cyberspace.

The boundary between cyberspace and the real world, according to Prof Ebot Ebot, was getting blurred with cyberspace representing the virtual eyes and ears of both the physical and the virtual world.

On his part, the President of the South West Court of Appeals, Justice Paul Ngute, representing the Minister of Justice and Keepers of the Seals, reminded participants that working on sensitive and constantly evolving issues, in a globalised and constantly changing institutional and social framework, requires continuous training to ensure the delivery of quality justice. 

“The upsurge in cybercrime in turn calls for sustained vigilance on the part of prosecuting authorities. This is a call for concern for Judicial and Legal Officers,” he said.

‘Cyberspace turned from opportunity into problem’

On his path, the South West Regional branch head of ANTIC, Egbe Besong Divine, expressed frustrations that criminals have turned the cyberspace from an opportunity into a problem. 

“Cybercrime is a very serious issue because we live in a system where technology evolves and the cybercriminals have capitalised on these ICT tools that enable us to solve these key problems to carryout malicious activities on information systems and on individuals,”Egbe said.

ANTIC, he said, has the forensic skills and specialised tools to track these criminals and send statistics and indices to law enforcement officers to help them track and arrest such criminals.

After the workshop, participants will be able to provide legal solutions to cybercrime, gain skills in digital evidence gathering; sanctions against cybercrime, digital public order, security watch and incident handling.

They will also gain skills on the challenge of user identification, domain name litigation, social media communication techniques, security and management of personal data on social media, electronic writing before the judge collaboration between ANTIC and law enforcement officers and security audit of information systems.

Since 2016, ANTIC has intensified it awareness raising campaigns targeting law enforcement officers and magistrates with seminars in Yaoundé in 2016, Douala in 2017, Bafoussam in 2018, Bertoua in 2019, Ngaoundéré in 2020, the Special Criminal Court in 2021 and Ebolowa in 2022 and the South West Region for the 8^th edition of such awareness-raising seminar for the these stakeholders.