Approximately 6,300 cyberattacks and espionage attempts on critical infrastructure were detected daily on average in 2024, as revealed this week by the Cybersecurity Incident Alert and Response Center (CARIC), according to the Judiciary Police (PJ). This number represents an annual increase of 8.6 percent, with 291 alert messages from critical infrastructure operators and 38 incident reports received by authorities.
According to PJ director Sit Chong Meng, this increase is mainly due to the high volume of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, aimed at overloading an online service and rendering it unusable for users, exploiting vulnerabilities in the systems of local critical infrastructure operators.
“To address this modus operandi used by hackers, CARIC, critical infrastructure operators, and telecommunications providers jointly developed a technical assurance project to mitigate its impact,” Sit explained. As part of this effort, four large-scale risk assessments were conducted across all critical infrastructures.
In September of last year, Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macau signed a memorandum to promote exchange and cooperation in the field of cybersecurity.
The high volume of telecommunications and cyber scams also remains a concern, with 354 cases of phone fraud and 906 cases of online scams recorded in 2024. The PJ warns of criminal groups using increasingly advanced technologies in scams, including Artificial Intelligence, and constantly updating their techniques.
“These criminals have been abusively using phishing messages and websites to steal credit card data […] which has made prevention more difficult,” the PJ warns. This crime involves fraudulent schemes to illegally obtain information such as ID card numbers, bank passwords, credit card numbers, and more, through emails with suspicious content.
Last year, 689 phishing-related cases were recorded, causing losses exceeding 14 million patacas to businesses and the general population. “Throughout last year, the PJ, in conjunction with the banking sector, managed to block payments in 597 cases, involving an amount of around 110 million patacas.” Additionally, the PJ proactively reported 680 suspicious bank accounts potentially used for scams to the banking sector.
Although the cross-border nature of these crimes “brings many challenges to combating scams,” the PJ reports that 236 members of active criminal groups were arrested in 2024, an increase of 50 percent compared to the previous year.
Authorities also warn about job-seeking scams abroad. Recently, several high-profile cases involved mainland and Hong Kong residents being kidnapped in Myanmar after being lured with false job offers.
