KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 25 — The RM10 million allocation injected into the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) under Budget 2023 is in line with the national agenda to combat online fraud or scams in the country, says CyberSecurity Malaysia (CSM) chief executive officer Datuk Amirudin Abdul Wahab.

He said the initiative to fight cybercrime was timely following the increase in online fraud and the value of losses involved.

"As an agency expert in the technical aspects of cyber security, CSM is always ready to offer technical assistance to NSRC, especially in digital forensic investigations with regard to online scams and fraud.

"At CSM, we receive cyber security incident reports from the public through Cyber999, where more than 70 per cent of the reports every year involve online fraud, including scams,” he told Bernama yesterday.

Meanwhile, Amirudin said CSM also welcomed the ‘kill switch” policy for all banking institutions as the security aspect was very important in the digital technology era which needed to be constantly strengthened due to the everchanging and complex modus operandi of cybercriminals.

"Empowering the users to take their own action to freeze accounts including ATM cards is appropriate to build a self-regulatory attitude as well as to increase the awareness of Internet users on the importance of cyber security,” he said.

When tabling Budget 2023 yesterday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim announced that the government had allocated RM10 million to NSRC to strengthen its role in combating online fraud and scams.

Anwar, who is also the finance minister, said in 2022 alone, more than 25,000 cybercrimes were recorded involving losses totalling RM850 million.

He said Bank Negara would also enforce a ‘kill switch’ policy for all banking institutions to enable users to take immediate action to freeze their accounts including ATM cards, from being used in the event of any suspicious activity. — Bernama