SECTION A

Read the case study below and answer ALL the questions that follow.

Russian-speaking Hacking Group Targeting Banks in Africa

Cyber hackers are targeting the region's financial institutions and a major theft may be imminent, cybersecurity experts warn. Experts at global cyber security company Kaspersky have warned that banks in sub-Saharan Africa are under intense cyberattack, probably from the infamous Silence Hacking Group. Silence is known to be responsible for the theft of millions of dollars from banks across the world. The company says its security researchers have reported on thousands of notifications of attacks on major banks since the first week of January. It is believed that the hackers are beginning the final stage of their operation to take money from the banks that they have successfully penetrated. "We urge all banks to stay vigilant, as apart from the large sums [of money], the Silence Group also steals sensitive information while monitoring the bank's activity," Kaspersky warned in a statement. The Silence Group is one of the most active Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) hackers. A typical cyberattack begins with a social engineering scheme, as attackers send a phishing e-mail that contains malware to a bank employee. From there, the malware gets inside the banks' security perimeter and lays low for a while, gathering information on the victim organisation by capturing screenshots and making video recordings of the day-to-day activity on the infected device, learning how things work in the targeted banks. Once attackers are ready to take action, they activate all capabilities of the malware and cash out using, for example, ATMs. Kaspersky researchers attribute the attacks to the Russian-speaking Silence Group, based on the malware used in the attacks, which was previously used solely in the group's operations. In addition, the language of the malware is Russian. The hackers attempted to slightly cover this fact by typing Russian words using the English keyboard layout. The "Silence Group has been quite productive in the past years, as they live up to their name; their operations require an extensive period of silent monitoring, with rapid and coordinated thefts," said Kaspersky security researcher. Sergey Golovanov said, "We noticed a growing interest of this group in banking organisations in 2017 and since that time the group would constantly develop, expanding to new regions and updating their social engineering scheme." Kaspersky detects the malware used in the operation as: HEUR: Trojan.Win32. Generic, PDM: Exploit.Win32. Generic.

(Source: https://www.thesouthafrican.com/tech/cybercrime-russian-speaking-hacking-group-targeting-banks-in-africa/)

QUESTION 1 (60 Marks)

1.1 Based on the article above, all financial institutions are willing to implement more effective cybercrime preventative measures. Advise the financial institutions on strategies, best practises and policies which they can implement in order to ensure that they are not attacked by "The Silence Group". (20 marks)

1.2 The local government in Sub-Saharan Africa has decided to hold a conference in order to help with the eradication of cybercrime. Advise the authorities accordingly on strategies that they can implement which will help with the eradication of cybercrime. (20 marks)

1.3 Critically discuss some of the challenges South Africa faces with regard to the prevention of cybercrime. (20 marks)

SECTION B

QUESTION 2 (20 Marks)

"If you deprive yourself of outsourcing and your competitors do not, you're putting yourself out of business." Lee Kuan Yew.

Evaluate the above statement and critically discuss the pros and cons of outsourcing with reference to Information Technology Systems.

QUESTION 3 (20 Marks)

Proposals by the Law Reform Commission of South Africa (LRC) for SA Internet service providers (ISPs) to block all local and international adult Web content will not protect South African children and similar efforts have not worked anywhere in the world. "Requiring ISPs to block all adult content by default, to protect children, is a disproportionate interference in the right to freedom of expression and it is simply ineffective. Moreover, blocking can only ever be permitted with regard to content that is unlawful. Adult content is not unlawful in South Africa," says Van der Walt. "Blocking or filtering of adult content should be controlled by end-users and, with regard to minor children, those end-users should be the parents who are ultimately ideally-placed to protect their own offspring." Finally, ISPA says it is firmly of the view that any Internet blocking or filtering obligations that might cause legal muster in the future should be aimed squarely at the content provider, not the intermediary. Internet intermediaries like ISPA's ISP members are currently regarded as "mere conduits" in South African law, it concludes. (Source: https://www.itweb.co.za/content/xnklOvzbQ81v4Ymz)

In light of the above, critically discuss whether Internet Service Providers (ISP's) are fulfilling their legal responsibilities duties/obligations in South Africa.

QUESTION 4 (20 Marks)

According to Lloyd (2017: 370), a recent trend in intellectual property litigation, has been for copyright owners to request court orders (blocking orders) which requires the Internet Service Providers to take technical steps to prevent their customers' access to websites which are implicated in facilitating copyright infringement.

(Source: Lloyd, I. (2017). Information Technology Law. Eighth Edition. United States of America. Oxford University Press).

In light of the above, critically discuss some of the legal implications of an infringement of patent, trademark and copyright protection Laws.