Lockdown Is On You Not On Your Data – Cyber Security and Its Importance

 

“Privacy – like eating and breathing – is one of life’s basic requirements.” –Katherine Neville

 About a year of the pandemic and everything has changed its course of flow. Months of house arrest and the entire world is running on online mode.  In this new DIGITAL ERA, sitting at their respective places, people are controlling the world, running their businesses, doing their jobs in the name of ‘Work from Home’, and education system have taken the form of MOOC Courses.  All your theory, thesis, study material, projects and all sorts of sensitive data, varying from your bank details, passwords, contacts to private photographs and conversations, all are stored in your laptops and mobiles.  Lockdown being in order, the promotion of the ‘DIGITAL WORLD’ having been in headlines, and people are proudly chanting, “We are transforming into a digital world”.  But wait! Have you ever thought that during the course of this transformation, you and your data are being vulnerable to various cyber-attacks?

 Cyber-crime has been rising in parallel with the advancements in technology.  The more is the innovation in technological traits, the more are the corresponding ideas to destroy its usefulness, and consequently, the more our privacy tends to slip away.  What is it that developed so much of our faith in technology?  How do we blindly trust our devices to store sensitive information in it? When wondering about safety, we only consider the real world threats, but have we ever thought of being protected virtually as well?  If not, then we ought to begin immediately!!  It’s high time for us to realize the threat those clever-cum-evil minds possess over our lives. 

 How are these cyber-crimes committed?  How many tricks or ways is it done?  LET’S SEE………. 

Social engineering:  It is the tactic of psychologically manipulating the target victims to surrender their private data.  The current mental state of a person, especially is a traumatic state, is used as the bait to trap the fish. The vulnerability of people is taken advantage of, to debilitate them, and make them fall prey to the crime and push themselves into the marsh.

 Phishing: Have you ever received emails from some unknown company or organization? Or, probably was it from a known one with unjustified reason?   YEAH!  Most of us do!  Often, these emails prove to be the biggest threat to our privacy.  The links attached or the login credentials asked are intended to hack your device, mine access to your data or insert bug into it.

 Malware: These are most unpredicted threats possess to our device.  Some malware or bud developed by hackers inserted to our database or systems to get access to our sensitive data.  A cyber security intelligence report in 2005 says that 123 new strains of malicious software were found every day.  10000 of those were new strains of malware.  11 years later in 2016, research had shown that 4 new strains of malware were discovered every second.  Every year, new threats arise, new malwares are coded and new scams are created.  It’s very necessary to beware of such threats and take safety measures.

Let’s look into some specific examples:-

Very often, we tend to save personal photographs, in the compromising state, in our devices believing it’s only with us.  Couples, being socially distant these days, make massive use of the chatting and video calling applications to communicate and bond.  They voluntarily agree to share nude stuffs on video calls and chats, having the myth that it’s on their mutual trust.  But are those sadistic minds trustworthy?  They couldn’t have anticipated the threat to their private lives being leaked on social media or could have been used as their remote control over them, in literal terms, blackmail them.

 One may get a random call from an unknown number saying they are from your respective bank and manipulate you using all sorts of cooked up stories just to get you to divulge your bank details and PINs/Passwords.  It was definitely not a call from a bank; rather it’s an audacious step of some mastermind planning a robbery in the name of bank.

Every day, we wake up and see some new innovations our scientists and engineers are planning or executing and the common citizens celebrating it.  Among us all, there lie some of those hackers who develop the subsequent malware harm the technology.  YES!!   Almost, every software can be corrupted by developing a malware or introducing a virus into it.   It’s no other than highly trained software professionals with the vicious intentions to sabotage our systems and privacy.

 People reluctantly believe cyber security is inevitable.  Also, being to less known about the issue, they end up being mellow regarding such cases.  At most what they do is just install any famous antivirus software in their laptop/PCs and stay free from thinking about any other aspect of protection.   Antivirus, no doubt, is absolutely the very first requirement for cyber-protection, but it is not the only necessity to be safe.  Cyber security is not at all inevitable unless it is believed to be.  It is observed that 95% of the cyber-crimes involve human error.  It is WE who can protect ourselves from getting trapped into such webs.

 Each and every professional and students included, who are all dependent on their laptops or mobiles, must be entitled to cyber-security training at least once in their initial stages of handling devices.  Such trainings not only give them the knowledge to secure their privacy, but also trained to handle any circumstance if cyber-crime.  The awareness of cyber-security is the need of the hour and it’ll be these trained people who would contribute to spread such awareness.  It is only our arousal and alertness that could mitigate the threats to our privacy.  

 Some tips to maintain cyber security:

·    Do not click on an unknown or infected attachment or unsafe URL or pop-ups that appear suddenly while browsing through some sites.

·         Avoid using default generated user names or passwords.

·         Make sure you always set a strong and tough to guess password.

·         Never share your bank account passwords and PINs.

·         Do not save your Passwords and PINs in your mobile.

·         Verify the mirrors of the changing rooms in malls if it has hidden cameras; prefer to switch off the lights while changing, you may use your mobile’s flashlight to locate stuffs.

·         Avoid sharing personal photographs and videos online, especially using some random unsafe software.

·         Always have an active pack of Antivirus software in your system.

·         Lost devices may pose severe threat, so have to be careful with your devices.

·         Enter the correct email id while you write to someone; an incorrect id may lead to access of the data to the user of the unknown id.

·         Lastly, always be ALERT!!

“At the end of the day, the goals are simple: safety and security.” – Jodi Rell