ICT expert: TT can be cyber-security hub

TT can develop a huge and profitable cyber-security industry, a Joint Select Committee (JSC) on the Cyber Crime Bill learnt yesterday from ICT expert Dr Yufei Wu. The JSC was temporarily chaired by Fitzgerald Hinds for an absent Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi.

“The cyber-world will become huge and there is a lot of money involved. So I really wish the laws would protect the cyber-business in this country and the whole region,” Wu said. He urged the committee to insert into the bill exemptions from prosecution for people legitimately engaged in research and providing cyber-security services.

“The bill would outlaw critical research. For cyber-security professionals, accessing networks is the very nature of their jobs.”

Wu who works at the UTT said the JSC is on the right track, but needs to slightly amend the bill.

He said the bill as it stands will let prosecutors “pick and choose” which violators they wish to prosecute, when instead it should provide protection for cyber-security businesses and researchers.

Wu cited similar laws in the states of California, North Carolina and Alabama and said the TT bill lacks the identity-theft provisions of California legislation.

Saying the bill will make office workers a bit nervous, Wu imagined an employee copying a computer file to take home to work on, and so breaching the bill’s confidentiality clauses. While JSC member Paul Richards suggested the company could simply authorise specific staff, Wu feared that a “small guy” in the firm might fall through the cracks.