THE Department of Justice yesterday said phishing, online selling scams and misinformation have dislodged online sexual exploitation as the most prevalent cases of Internet crimes in the country.
Justice Undersecretary Markk Perete said this was the finding of the DOJ Office of Cybercrime which it presented during the first part of its webinar series dubbed “Cybercrime In The Time Of Corona: PH Cybercrime Trends During The COVID-19 Pandemic” which it hosted last July 8.
During the seminar, law enforcers discussed various Internet-related crimes that were reported and investigated while provinces and municipalities were placed under various levels of community quarantine.
“Based on the law enforcement authorities’ records from March to June 2020, the top three most prevalent crimes in the Philippines were phishing, online selling scam and proliferation of misinformation that tends to cause panic among the public,” Perete said.
Phishing and online selling scam are punishable under Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, while misinformation is penalized under RA 11649 or the Bayanihan We Heal as One Act that was passed by Congress in support of the government’s overall strategy against COVID-19.
Perete the three Internet-related crimes have dislodged online sexual exploitation from the top rank.
Last May, the DOJ said online sexual exploitation of women and children from March to May increased by 264 percent compared to the same period last year.
Recorded cases during the period showed 279,166 cases of online sexual exploitation of children compared to 76,561 for the same period in 2019.
NBI Cybercrime Division chief Victor Lorenzo said phishing involves cybercriminals disguising themselves as banks or other financial institutions asking account holders for information.
Once they have the victim’s information, they will then use it to transfer the deposit to their own accounts.
NBI Cybercrime Division Senior Agent Francis Senora said during the webinar that the agency has recorded a 200 percent in cases involving phishing during the period.
“Before the COVID-19 outbreak, we only had around 30 cases but three weeks after the outbreak we had an additional 70 cases, so that’s a jump of more than 200 percent increase,” Senora said.
He explained that with more people using the Internet for communications and for work during the lockdown, it gave cyber criminals more opportunities to do their illegal activities.
“This is one of their opportunities to attack,” Senora added.
With this development, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra called on law enforcement agencies to beef up their cybercrime units by upgrading their technology and improve their probing abilities.
