Is the Ukrainian government serious about cracking down on computer crime in general?
Now we can think so. The Ukrainian government has passed the changes in “National Security Strategy”, where computer crime and cyberterrorism were defined as priorities. And Security Service of Ukraine is charged to investigate computer crimes and cyberterrorism. I’m told that computer crimes in general aren’t considered a high priority by Ukrainian law enforcement agencies because they are occupied by other serious crimes. Can you comment on whether that is accurate or not? That is not absolutely accurate. There are special divisions in structure of law enforcement agencies (Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and Security Service of Ukraine), which are engaged in fighting hi-tech crimes. July 4, 2003 Criminal responsibility for these kind of crimes has been toughened. Initial press reports on Kovalchuk/Vysochansky arrest indicated that he also was a hacker who planted a “back door” in the counterfeit software to enable him to access the computer systems of those who purchased the
