Prosecution questions cyber gang [Archives:2008/1145/Local News]

By: Yemen Times Staff
SANA'A, April 9 ) Sana'a city's General Prosecution on April 8 began investigating a gang specializing in web piracy, the first such investigations to occur in Yemen.

The Ministry of Defense's 26sep.net web site reports that the General Department for Combating Terrorism and Organized Crime arrested three gang members after a local web hosting company, Rawasi, reported to security authorities about the destruction of several Yemeni web sites by the gang.

The web sites affected by the cyber gang include: the Ministry of Defense's news web site 26sep.net, the state-run algomhoriah.net, the independent marebpress.com, the opposition news web site www.alwahdawi.net and the local NGO's hoodonline.org. It's unclear exactly how many web sites were affected, but the prosecution says there were many.

The suspects were able to obtain the user names and passwords of the web sites' servers, but were discovered in mid-March when the web sites suddenly stopped working. While the attackers were able to delete all of the sites' contents (news items, databases, etc), the web hosting company was able to restore the deleted data within 24 hours.

According to 26sep.net, the cyber gang planted its members as employees at web hosting companies to obtain user names and passwords of web sites. They also installed files and programs on the web sites as a precautionary means if passwords were changed.

Gang members also changed web site domain names. Rawasi reports that an organized group attacked its servers used to host web sites. In a statement, the company acknowledged that one of its employees was involved in the attack and although it was precision and organized, the individual didn't achieve all of his aims.

Yemen currently has no laws regarding cyber crime. However, Interior Minister Rashad Al-Alimi said late last month that the Yemeni government will prepare a law to combat cyber crimes, but he said nothing more about the new law.

The internet was introduced to Yemen in 1990 and according to the latest figures from the Telecommunications Ministry, there are 146,000 internet subscribers nationwide, 822 internet cafes and more than 20 news web sites operating in Yemen.
——
[archive-e:1145-v:18-y:2008-d:2008-04-10-p:ln]