Romania tackles rise in cyber-crime

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3344721.stm

By Clark Boyd 
27 December, 2003

The Friday night scene in the bar at Bucharest's Polytechnic 
University is a lot like any other college bar scene. Some students 
knock back a few beers. Others enjoy a game of pool. 

In another corner of the bar sit a dozen high-end desktop computers, 
complete with high-speed internet connections. This is where the real 
action or maybe the virtual action, is. 

Students sit three-deep waiting to get on a machine. For less than a 
dollar an hour, they can check e-mail, chat online, and listen to 
music. Most of them, however, are playing violent video games. 

Gaming aside, the youths who study computer science here are very 
good. In fact, Romania's a global powerhouse when it comes to 
computing and programming. 

Pool of skills 

It is a tradition that stretches back to the early days of Communist 
dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, according to Florin Talpes, who was a 
computer programmer during the Ceausescu years. 

"Ceausescu had ambitions," said Mr Talpes, "maybe he dreamed that 
Romania could be a power. In fact, in the 70s, Ceausescu wanted to 
build a very modern Romania, very well connected to technology." 

According to the computer programmer, Ceausescu succeeded. 

"On the technical side, Romania has tens and tens of years of building 
these skills, so we have a huge human resource pool with good 
technical skills. So, the Romanians love the technical side, it's in 
our genes to work on the technical side." 

Those skills have got Romanians noticed in Europe and the US. Many 
Romanian programmers have been lured away to work at software 
companies outside of their homeland. 

Romania's stagnant economy has meant that those who stay behind find 
it hard to make an honest living in computers. 

Economic hardship is causing some of those talented youths in 
Bucharest's net cafes to turn to hacking and other forms of internet 
crime, according to Andrew McLaughlin of Harvard University's Berkman 
Center for Internet and Society. 

"There's a significant number of very talented, very inventive hackers 
inside Romania who, you know, are good at scamming people elsewhere," 
he said. 

"And it's a real problem for Romania. It doesn't want to become a 
haven for internet crime." 

Online fraud 

But Romania's reputation as a haven for internet crime is growing, 
thanks to a number of recent, high-profile cases. 

In one instance, Romanians hacked into a server at the South Pole 
Research Center and stole sensitive information. 

They then blackmailed the centre, threatening to share that research 
data with other countries if they did not get their money. 

Romanians seem to be truly coming into their own as cyber-criminals in 
online auction scams, with the country ranking high in eBay's table of 
estimated fraud risk. 

Julia Mickey Wilson, a specialist with the Internet Fraud Complaint 
Center, a joint initiative between the FBI and the National White 
Collar Crime Center, says some Romanians set up fake internet auction 
sites and accounts. 

They then get unsuspecting Americans to send them money for products 
that do not actually exist. 

"A lot of times they don't feel they're actually committing a crime," 
she said. "It's more of an opportunity - if you send them your money, 
you're sort of responsible, I think they have a mind set that they 
kind of look at it like that." 

But Romanian authorities are now fighting back. 

Computer programmer Varujan Pambuccian, a member of the Romanian 
Parliament, says that for too long, young computer workers in Romania 
have thought that hacking and writing viruses was a resume builder, 
the first step toward landing a well-paying computer security job. 

He believes it is time to send a different message to young, 
computer-savvy Romanians. 

"We are trying first of all to explain to them that nobody is hiring 
anymore hackers," said Mr Pambuccian. 

"We're trying to explain to them now that this is not a way of finding 
better jobs. This is a way of finding better jails." 

Targeting cyber-crime 

The politician wrote and pushed through Romania's recently passed 
cyber-crime law. It is, he says, very punitive and very simple. 

"We've translated the laws from the real world into the cyber world. 
Because a site is my home in cyberspace, and if someone is trying to 
force my door, it's the same as an illegal intrusion. 

"It's 15 years of jail is someone is trespassing on my property here 
in Romania. It's the same on the internet." 

Tough law-making has been reinforced through the creation of a special 
cyber-crime unit within Romania's national police. 

It is headed by Virgil Spiridon, who has been working with the FBI and 
other Western European police agencies to tackle cyber-crime. 

"I think the way we could resolve the problem is to make some programs 
in which these young people have something to create," he says. 

"We shouldn't give them time to think about ways to do internet crime. 
And I think the private sector should do that, not only the police." 

The Romanian authorities hope that legislation, enforcement and 
technology can make the country a leader in the fight against 
cyber-crime. 

The FBI has praised Romanian authorities for their efforts. US 
officials have even suggested that Romania could serve as a model for 
the whole of Eastern Europe. 

-=-

Clark Boyd is technology correspondent for The World, a BBC World 
Service and WGBH Radio Boston co-production 



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