Hacker steals N$720 000

A SUSPECTED hacker was arrested at Oranjemund on Saturday on charges pertaining to cyber-fraud amounting to N$720 000.

The suspect, Ricardo Nestor (30), a former police officer at Rosh Pinah, allegedly hacked the emails of a Walvis Bay businessman, and replaced the information in the victim’s bank account with his own, according to Erongo crime investigations coordinator Erastus Iikuyu.

Subsequently, he managed to transfer N$720 000 into his own account, which he then withdrew and transferred to a financial institution in South Africa, said Iikuyu.

The alleged hacking took place at Walvis Bay between October 2019 and December 2019, before the businessman noticed that hundreds of thousands of dollars were missing from his account, and informed the police.

Iikuyu said the exact modus operandi was still under investigation, but confirmed the medium used was the internet. He said an internet investigation by the police led them to Nestor at Oranjemund, where he also has family.

Iikuyu said there was no relation and no connection between the two parties.

“The suspect was a stranger – he was just a suspected hacker,” Iikuyu said.

Nestor appeared on a charge of cyber fraud, forgery and uttering, and money laundering at the Walvis Bay Magistrate’s Court yesterday. The case was postponed for further investigation to 5 March. No bail was granted for fear he would interfere with the state’s investigation. The money has not been recovered.

Police spokesperson Kauna Shikwambi said that that this was the biggest hacking incident the Namibian Police have successfully exposed to date, and which has led to the arrest of the suspected hacker.

“This is a message to current and prospective culprits that the Namibian Police have their fingers on the new trend of cyber crime and that the criminals cannot even hide on the web any more. We will catch them,” she said.

Statistics of cybercrime in Namibia is very little.

A source at one of Namibia’s established banks, who requested not to be named as the issue pertained to general bank security, told The Namibian that hacking, or any form of cyber crime, when it came to accessing bank accounts, was not common in Namibia yet.

Fraud in general was a major concern, of which cyber fraud was just one component.

“All banks see thousands of transactions a day, but they have systems in place to detect and flag irregular transactions. If there is suspicious activity, it will be investigated,” he said.

According to him, while banks try and protect customers’ accounts, it was ultimately the customer who was responsible for the safekeeping of their personal information.

According to Check Point, an internationally renowned provider of ICT infrastructure and IT security, Namibia is a number one target for cyber criminals who want to exploit information and communication technology infrastructure weaknesses, The Namibian reported last October.

Methods can range from blackmailing to stealing company secrets, ransomware attacks, releasing viruses or Trojan horses, hacking accounts, or other forms of compromising people, leading them to feel they have no choice but to pay a ransom.

Johann van Rooyen, a cyber security specialist at Green Enterprise Solutions Namibia told The Namibian then that is was essential that Namibians, both as private citizens and companies, step up their cyber security game.