Karachi : Chairman of National Business Group of FPCCI, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Monday said different gangs of cybercriminals have become a national security threat.

These criminals are attacking banks, financial institutions and online business hitting confidence of masses and the business community while the institution supposed to deal with them is not very efficient. 

Mian Zahid Hussain said that cybercrimes are jeopardising the future of e-commerce and branchless banking as they are easily required information from Nadra, telecom companies, banks, voter lists and union councils etc.

Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that black sheep in different government and private entities are selling data of masses to the criminals while it has become difficult to bring them to the book.

He noted that there is a general lack of awareness and expertise in government, semi-government and private companies including banks which is making masses an easy prey. 

Many banks have been attacked by hackers but most of such cases are not reported for the sake of business and keeping the confidence of accountholders intact, he observed. 

The increasing threat warrants establishment of an autonomous institution that can deal with this issue as existing infrastructure is inadequate and lacks resources as well as skills while laws are not as they should be. 

He said that a report suggests that cybercrimes resulted in a loss of three trillion dollars in 2015 which will jump to 10.5 trillion dollars by 2025 making it most profitable business and more damaging than natural disasters.