Cybercrime in Thailand: Most Malicious Threats on the Rise Amidst COVID-19

In March 2020, cybercrime increased with an alarming rate of 37% in Thailand compared to February of the same year, according to statistics from the pacific prime website. Needless to say that the Covid-19 pandemic contributed heavily to the increase in cybercrimes.

It was further revealed in the same report that these cybercrimes could easily cost damage of $286 Billion to the Thai economy. Moreover, as several organizations in Thailand are simply unprepared to deal with cybercrime, it ultimately makes them vulnerable to cyberattacks and a possible calamitous economic collapse.

The more a country relies on technology, the more complex and malicious threats are drawn towards it. Also, the government is headed toward deploying technology that can decrease the Covid-19 pandemic result in all life’s sectors such as education, health, and economics.

Types of Cybercrime in Thailand

Cybercrime can be divided into two main categories. The first category is a criminal activity that only affects computers, while the second category comprises activities used to commit various crimes. You will find below the list of the different types of cybercrime:

• Phishing – An attacker transfers a deceitful message to trick a victim into disclosing sensitive information or deploying malicious software on the victim’s infrastructure.
• Identity theft – When someone uses another person’s personal identifying information, like their name, identifying number, or credit card number, without their permission to commit fraud or other crimes.
• Hacking – When someone explores methods for breaching defenses and exploiting weaknesses in a computer system or network.
• Cyber extortion – An act of demanding payment through the use of threat of some form of malicious activity against a victim, such as data compromise, denial of service attack, or ransomware.
• Cyber espionage – An act of collecting secrets and information without the permission and knowledge of the information holder.

Thailand Cybersecurity Laws

Over the years, the Thailand government has employed various cybersecurity laws to monitor, detect, prevent, mitigate, and manage cybercrimes.

The laws comprised data protection and e-privacy laws, confidentiality laws, information security laws, and many others.

Here are some popular cybersecurity laws for the prevention of cybercrime in the country.

1. Electronic Transactions Act B.E. 2551 (2008)
2. Financial Institution Business Act B.E. 2551 (2008)
3. Telecommunications Business Act B.E 2544 (2011)
4. Payment Systems Act B.E 2560 (2017)
5. Special Case Investigation Act B.E 2547 (2004)

Cybercriminals that are motivated only by money regularly target major corporate businesses. It is not surprising to see them as targets because they are at most risk due to their security teams, infrastructure, strategies, budget, etc.

Moreover, the three most common cybercrime tactics for targeting corporate businesses include brand impersonation, data exfiltration, and data corruption. Furthermore, in a pandemic where several employees work from their homes, cybercriminals exploit this situation and target them with various cyberattacks.

Recently, call-center-related scams were also among Thailand’s most reported cybercriminals. These hackers have incited millions of Thai Baht in damages, deceiving Thai victims via Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services.