Be wary of cyber crime: Prasad

CYBER criminals use ransom-ware attacks to influence election results and fake news articles, says Cybernetic Global Intelligence chief executive officer Ravin Prasad.
The Australian-based company is a business partner with Datec PNG Ltd.
Prasad said public servants, businesses and the people must be aware of this and read these articles more.
He urged organisations to create cyber security awareness among employees during the election period.
“Advanced persistent threat actors may create fictitious media sites and spoofing legitimate media sites to obtain PNG voter-registration data, anti-PNG propaganda, and misinformation about voter suppression, voter fraud, and ballot fraud,” Prasad said.
“(Our) experts urge the PNG public to critically evaluate the sources of the information they consume, and to seek out reliable and verified information from trusted sources, such as state and local election officials.
“The public should also be aware that if foreign actors or cyber criminals were able to successfully change an election-related website, the underlying data and internal systems would remain uncompromised.
“Malicious cyber actors have been known to use sophisticated phishing operations to target political parties and campaigns, think tanks, civic organisations, and associated individuals.
“Email systems are the preferred vector for initiating malicious cyber operations.”
He said for information on election results, people should rely on state and local government election officials.
“Report potential election crimes, such as disinformation about the manner, time, or place of voting to the Election Commission,” he said.
“If appropriate, make use of in-platform tools offered by social media companies for reporting suspicious posts that appear to be spreading false or inconsistent information about election-related.”