Pics: Umesh Marpalli
Daijiworld Media Network - Udupi (HB)
Udupi, Apr 2: Chikkamagaluru district superintendent of police, K Annamalai on Saturday April 1 spoke on 'cyber crime trends' at the extramural lecture series organised by Manipal Institute of Technology here.
The programme was organised marking the diamond jubilee celebration of Manipal University.
Treading dangerous domains
"Getting free Wi-fi from a public source is always dangerous. It might be encrypted by someone. Hence, a person has to have aware of using personal and professional emails in public Wi-fi. The older generation is more susceptible to hacking.
"The Europol-2017 – Internet organised crime threat assessment said that there are eight trends marked out as criminal, ransomware, criminal use of data, payment fraud, online child sex abuse, abuse of the dark net, social engineering and use of virtual currency," he said.
E-transactions
Annamalai delivering the lecture to MIT students spoke on the potential danger of the rapidly growing 'Dark Web', where dangerous weapons are sought. "A recent trend is 'hacking' into others account, data base and SWIFT codes. A recent SWIFT transaction assessment stated that about 6.2 crore accounts have made online transactions between countries totalling to 30 trillion dollars.
"Ransomware is another software where all files, data and images from a PC can be encrypted with a positive and unique key. Mirai is another malware, which attacks a server," he said.
Digital era doom
India has no cyber-insurance or a good anti-virus software. In this 'Digitalization era', the Government has not thought of taking up protection measures. Instead, it is spending Rs 100 to collect data. The government has to change its mindset. "
Need for cyber crime branches
On conviction rate beiong very low in Cyber Crime, the SP said, "There is a lack of knowledge on 'information technology advancement'. The court officials have to be trained specially for dealing with cyber issues. A special cyber crime branch has to be installed in every zone. Moreover, the trend of crimes have been changing every day, so it is very tough to catch or trace them. Hence, all devices should always be secured. Otherwise, it will get vulnerable. But most of the Indian apps, browsers are secured," said by SP Annamalai.
Regarding preventive measures and IT control, SP Annamalai said, "Anti-virus like Kaspersky will help identify the threat. It can detect upto 4-5 viruses at once. It is prime to keep it updated. On the other hand, all the updated apps are not secured. Students are crazy about downloading new apps, and it consumes battery. People have to stop trusting new apps. Every app records 'history'."
Cyberwarfare
"The third world war will not happen between countries physically. Cyber war is a new trend and is cost effective. At a real war, at the battlefield, we lose more than we would in a cyber war. It also takes time to rebuild everything," he added.
Entrepreneurship
On a more positive note, another resource person Ashwani Gujral, chief market strategist, CNBC-TV 18 delivered a talk on 'How brand-MIT grooms entrepreneurs'.
Addressing the gathered said, "An entrepreneur needs to be a risk-taker and inspire people to take risks. A person learns through failure, which is a step towards success."
Addressing the students Gujral said, "It is the right time as students, to dream what you want to achieve and make it real. One has to belief in oneself and have the desire to be established in a particular field."
Gujral advised parents not to impose any idea on their children. Engineers are themselves creators and have the capacity to create skills in others. 80% of the total money in any fields is concentrated among 20% of people therein."
Revealing basic mantras of entrepreneurship, he said, "Most run after money and compete for a job. But they don't aspire to be an entrepreneur. People are educated but lack skills. Entrepreneurship is an act of faith. The mantra of success is finally to have 'belief in your self'. That is enough for everything ahead."
MIT Director G K Prabhu welcomed the guests. BHV Pai, joint director of MIT, moderated the question-answer session.