Saudi Arabia and UAE Ranked Top Two Vulnerable to Cybercrime in Gulf Countries

2009-11-26

Trend Micro, a firm specialized in antivirus and internet content security, recently published a report that ranked Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as the most vulnerable of the Gulf countries to fall victim to cyber-crimes.

An article on the Al Arabiya News Channel website stated that Saudi Arabia, which was ranked first in the report, had 796,000 cases of computer system crashes from hackers in the past nine months, accounting for 64 percent of the total number of cases in the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC). While coming in second, the United Arab Emirates has seen the number of computer system crashes as a result fo cyber attacks reach 248,000 in the same time period, accounting for 20 percent of the total cases in the GCC countries.

The Trend Micro report also revealed that most cases of system collapse in Saudi Arabia and the UAE involved attacks by hackers to steal valuable data such as passwords and credit card numbers. While a regulation to combat cyber-crime was approved by a Saudi cabinet meeting on March 26, the report states that the prosecution of computer hackers by local authorities is almost impossible because most attacks come from countries outside the region.