Simon Smith Cyber Forensic Private Investigator says Australia is in Dark Waters

Announcement posted by eVestigator Cyber Forensic IT & Expert Witness Services 15 Dec 2016

Amidst Yahoo 'doing it again' and not informing the world about 1 billion accounts being hacked, Simon explores the bigger issues.

Australia has serious Cyber-security issues and Yahoo just explained some of them

Simon Smith aka eVestigator is a popular Computer Forensics Private Investigator and Cyber Expert. He is known for solving complex cyber-crimes and cyber-stalking cases and high-tech cases that the police have or will not touch. After he first reported about the unbelievable Cyber-security event of 500 million Yahoo accounts being "brought out in the open" here, not only 6 months later - we learn that there are more secrets that Yahoo have not told their customers.

"You have got to be kidding me", Mr. Smith said. "After all of my cyber-stalking, identity theft, cyber-crime, cyber-scam victims, account hacking information like this could have come in handy knowing it was 'out there'. It could have saved teenage lives with cyber-bullying suicides on the rise, it could have saved people their entire life savings, I'm speechless."

Mr. Smith literally was speechless. This was one of those rare times. He could not believe how such a big company could first of all try to blame the first 500 million on "state sponsored" attacks and take such a relaxed approach over 1 billion. "I am shocked and of sheer disbelief that this commercial organisation has to wait for an exploitation of information to actually tell their customer they have been compromised."

Mr. Smith is a professional expert White Hat Hacker. "It is all too easy to say 'we were hacked'. It is a very nice scapegoat. Let me tell you something about hacking. It isn't magic. There is no smoke and mirrors. It comes down to a balance of the strength of the attacker and the weakness of the defender. On two occasions Yahoo have been proven to have weak Cyber-security systems. Hacker's don't really have magical powers. They work off others' mistakes and exploits. The systemic problem here is - let's not look at the fact they were hacked. Let's look at why they were hacked? A $10 company could have more security than Yahoo. It is irrelevant on the Hacker's side", Mr. Smith said.

"My personal opinion is to 'run' and 'run fast'. As a Cyber-security expert if you care about your identity and privacy - run. Yeah, 500m and not telling us - that's kinda normal I suppose, but 1 billion, sorry that's pushing it Yahoo", Mr. Smith said.

"That is a public warning of opinion and it is my personal opinion. I'm more disturbed with the fact that Yahoo felt it so necessary to hide it. That is where the real shame comes in. Verizon, I'd be doing some pretty big due diligence here", Mr. Smith warned.

What does Simon say in regards to APAC Regulators Set to Up Cyber-scrutiny in the Asia Pacific? "Too late. The Government apparently thinks they are doing a wonderful job now", Mr. Smith said.

"What can I say, or should I even say anything at all? Australia - you are about 10 years too late. I am of sheer disbelief. On a daily basis, catching cyber-scammers and cyber-stalkers, fraudsters and being at the forefront of white collar crime, having seen all the representations that the Australian Government make, I'd like to set some home truths", is what Mr. Smith said earlier today.

"The Australian Government has invested millions of dollars into the so-called awareness of cyber-crime and further, enforcement and so-called reporting via ACORN. This agency has turned out to be a complete waste of taxpayers money as it is not only useless, it is actually worse than useless, it lets scammers run away and gives the police a scapegoat to pass on the job of doing any real detective work", Mr. Smith said.

Mr. Smith has had a lot of cases in dealing with Cyber-crime at the forefront and producing factual evidence for use in court. He has solved scam and stalking cases that police could not solve in over 5 years. He has been very successful in his investigations and has appeared on local television of recent times on both the Today show, the Today Extras show as well as the 7:30 report on the ABC.

"I came into a situation recently where I found key information in a multi-million dollar SCAM and at the speed of lightning gave this information through ACORN and then it was one of the lucky ones that actually made it to the police. The next minute some untrained, borderline primary school IT level police 'detective' assigned by ACORN rings me up and refuses to look at my factual findings. The reasons given were egotistical. After a report to the relevant authorities, and then the Ombudsman as it turns out he was wrong at fact and had no idea what he was talking about", Mr. Smith stated. Mr. Smith likes to help out his clients' through the entire process and when resistance is seen by the police it is often frustrating for the victim. He is also a Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner and has written textbook material on Grief and Trauma and knows the aftermath of such a crisis. He understands the impact victims have in these situations, such empathy, he states, police and authorities lack.

"My client lost all his money and ended up in a mental institution. Every single day I am told by clients that they are turned away from the police with a variety of excuses. There is clearly an inability even to refer correctly, which shows a real systemic problem. When it comes to Financial crimes, this is something I have had a lot of experience with. The regulator's can pretend to take action and make changes but at the end of the day it comes down to sheer scapegoating and liability shifting", said Mr. Smith.

When Mr. Smith was asked if there were enough police resources to combat Cybercrime he said, "Yes, they have access to free training via the FBI but choose not to use it".

When Mr. Smith was asked if the banks have genuine and reliable software solutions to detect Fraud he stated, "In my expert opinion as a professional software developer of 20 years, not they most certainly don't. Not only do they not have good enough software, the weakest link is in any information system is the people. Their fraud department is a big team of legal counsel trying to pass liability somewhere else. They have guarantees they have to abide by - and I know what they are."

He went on to say, "The average consumer doesn't realise this and they play on that. I've seen it happen. That's going to change. With respect to the police training, experts like me have to pay and attain the best Australia has and/or grow up at the exact right time at the dawning of the birth of the internet and further go elsewhere to get Department of Homeland Security recognised Certifications."

Mr. Smith works a lot with family violence cases providing strategic evidence in his capacity as an investigator with special talents in family law cases. He has trained barristers, lawyers and psychologists to become Commonwealth appointed Family Dispute Resolution Practitioners. He quite passionately stated, "When you have teenagers committing suicide for cyber-bullying and cyber-scammers taking every last cent away from people, and the AFP, the police and especially the banks pushing you away to avoid liability, the consumers get frustrated. I for one have seen people get scammed from IP addresses I've reported to ACORN over a year ago recently."

He went on to say, "So is it really just a 'more dynamic and forward looking supervisory approach' that is needed or is it just some fancy words to make the Government of the day pretend they know what they are talking about. I have helped so many people with Financial crimes where the banks, police, AFP and AUSTRAC should have now known what to do but were simply too lazy to help. With all the powers of Interpol, I have heard stories like, "We have no jurisdiction overseas", when just a few weeks I did a case which led to an overseas Interpol investigation."

Finally Mr. Smith said that the banking sector isn't as honest as they make out to be. "The Banking Sector and Remittance Providers better look out because I for one am onto their tricks. Sending customers away to report Cyber-crime when they are merely avoiding liability under their contractual agreements is something that I picked up a long time ago. I guess in the next few years you can expect to see a lot more law suits against banks for breach of contract and negligence in their deficient fraud detection systems", Mr. Smith said.

Mr. Smith is working on programs to help educate consumers to knows their rights when it comes to banks and credit card fraud.

He appears to be pioneering in an area that not many have ventured but is willing to look after the little guy just as much as his High-Tech crime major cases. Simon Smith is a Computer Forensic Expert and can be contacted at http://www.cybersecurity.com.au or http://www.simonsmith.com.au.