Cybercrime upsurge aided by FIA’s lack of capacity

The agency does not have modern tools, expert personnel, and adequate funding

LAHORE:

With the drastic upsurge in internet users in the past decade, albeit Pakistan is now considered a lucrative market for technology companies, a lack of resources means cybercrime is increasing unhindered across the country.

Cybercrime falls under the purview of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and in Punjab, the agency is marred with issues such as outdated hardware, a lack of employees, a lack of funding, and a scarcity of cybercrime experts - all of which have aided the exponential rise of computer crimes in the province. In this regard, a senior FIA official, who spoke to The Express Tribune under condition of anonymity, said that the agency was struggling on various fronts in the country’s most populated province.

“For such a large region the agency only has 2 locators, which also happen to be outdated. Similarly, we only have 5 monitoring vehicles for the entire province,” he informed. The official further disclosed that apart from modern tools and software the FIA also lacked skilled personnel who could successfully curb computer crimes.

“The agency is so understaffed that each investigation officer has to deal with 6,000 to 8,000 applications annually.” However, employing more personnel is currently not an option due to a lack of funding, which is already impacting officers in the FIA’s offices in Lahore, who have not been paid for the past 6 months, according to the official. Being understaffed and overworked translates into the agency not being able to deal with the populace’s complaints in due time.

“I filed a complaint of online sexual harassment to the FIA a while back but the accused is still at large,” informed Shehr Bano, a resident of Lahore, who was being sent sexually explicit messages over the popular social media application SnapChat.

Similarly, another complainant, Khalid Javed, told The Express Tribune that his financial information had been stolen through an email link, which led to money being drawn out from his bank account and credit card, but despite routine visits to the FIA offices, no action had been taken. While it remains to be seen when complainants like Bano and Javed will be able to get the FIA’s attention, Shahzad Ilyas, a cybersecurity expert, was of the view that since the FIA cannot help, the populace should help themselves.

“To prevent becoming a victim of crime in the internet world, it is crucial to keep your usernames and other confidential information private,” said Ilyas, adding that people should be wary of untrustworthy Wi-Fi networks and update their passwords periodically.

“There is also an urgent need for mobile banking applications to mandate the use of face identification or fingerprint unlocking so that bank accounts are not easily targeted. Furthermore, people should also be careful about where they use their credit cards and make sure they do not tell their PIN to anyone,” suggested Ilyas while talking to The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 9^th, 2023.