Microsoft corporation to launch hotline in Moldova to fight cyber attacks

Chisinau, 16 March /MOLDPRES/- The Microsoft Corporation has informed that it would launch a “hotline” in Moldova to provide support to users facing cyber crimes and software piracy, given that the number of cyber threats are on the rise. According to a report by the International Data Corporation, employees’ computers have unlicensed software in 65 per cent of cases, and each fourth employee downloads independently illegal programmes and applications  on their PCs.

“The same fraudulent scheme is used in the Internet network from Moldova. It proposes free downloading of some or other software products of the Microsoft corporation. Thus, for example, while searching for “free download Windows” in the Internet, users are subjected to the risk of losing confidential data and money in 92 out of 100 cases”, Microsoft notes.

According to Microsoft's International Centre for Fighting Cyber Crime, about 80 per cent of the citizens of the Eastern Europe member states have faced  actions of cyber criminals in the past, and 97.5 per cent of small and medium-sized companies were subjected to cyber threats at least once a year.

The networks of highly secured companies are attacked too. Thus, on 4 June 2015, IT resources of the National Bank of Moldova (BNM) were subjected to a cyber attack, which blocked access to the Bank’s data available in the Internet. As a result, the BNM’s official website was temporarily unavailable. The database of the Starnet company was broken by hackers three months earlier.

These and other cases show how vulnerable our information security can be, experts said. In February 2015, the information systems of five Moldovan state institutions were attacked from outside, according to the Prosecutor’s General Office. “Cyber attacks are becoming more frequent and bring new risks and huge damages to the government, private sector and citizens”, the Information Technology and Communication Ministry said.

“The level of threats on behalf of criminals who use modern technologies is continuously increasing. In 2015 alone, 317 million new malicious programmes  were created, which represents about 1 million new cyber threats per day”, the management director of software assets and verification of compliance with license terms in the Commonwealth of Independent States countries, Dmitriy Beresnev, said.

The damage caused by the cyber attacks amounted to almost 159 billion dollars all over the world in 2015. According to data by the Symantec company, 594 million people have become victims of hackers' attacks.

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor L. Alcaza)