Cyber security incidents like -Phishing, Web intrusion, Virus and Trojan, Ransomeware, Spoofing and more were witnessed in the country in the year 2016.
These attacks included many political and High profile individuals along with common citizens of the country. Few incidents which were reported and were all over the news and internet are – Vice president of the Indian National Congress Rahul Gandhi’s Official Twitter handle which was hacked following which the Official Twitter handle of Indian National Congress was also compromised. Also the CEO on India’s largest E-commerce website Binny Dayal’s were email were also spoofed these year. Apart from these high profile people I know a friend whose facebook account was compromised.
Lucy (Name changed to protect the identity) received an email on the gmail email address stating that someone has tried to access her email account from an Iphone and if it is not her that she should change the password. Lucy went home and changed the password. However in the mean time her facebook account was hacked and most of the contact from her facebook list was sent a message stating “My debit card is not working andI urgently require Rs 1000 please send my your cards details.” Few people how knew her closely dint even thing and sent the card details and OTP and the amount was been withdrawn from the account. However few people who were not very close to her found it suspicious and called her to know what was the emergency? That was the time Lucy realised that there is something more than just an google account been used from some other phone. She tried login to the her facebook account and whoop this is what was scaring her facebook account was blocked and she was been asked for a Ransom of Rs 5000 to unlock the account. However in this whole case there were multiple ways of hacking which was used. One Ransomware which was used to compromise the Facebook account and then SMS spoofing which was used to send a message to contacts. Also her email was compromised to get the access to her facebook as most of us using facebook have some or other way linked it to our Gmail.
When Lucy’s account was compromised and a Ransom was asked I chose to discuss this with Manan Shah – CEO and Co-founder of Avalance Global Solutions Pvt. Ltd which is a cyber security solutions provider. While in the discussion Manan Explained me many things which as an Individual we don’t even bother to notice. He explained me about SMS spoofing and other ways of Hacking techniques.
Manan further explains –
He continues – The Hacker have a terminology called hacking terminology which is divided in 5 plans
- Information Gathering
- Scanning
- Gaining access
- Maintaining access
- Clearing Track
These attacks are established through computers which are either located in different parts of the world or the hackers use softwares which bounces the IP of the computer to different locations of the world by easily available software which helps in the bouncing the IP and masking or hiding the identity.
Manan believes that the youth and the future of tomorrow should be aware about hacking and cracking. To spread the awareness about hacking Manan has started a venture called Avalance Tech which provides certification of Ethical Hacker.
Manan Concludes by giving some precautionary tips to be secured.
- Always believe that you are hacked or you are been watched this will restrict you to share or post some personal and confidential information.
- Nothing is safe everything we share, send or upload is eventually saved on that particular server and someone on the other part was the world can view the information on that server.
- Always use the websites which are secure or say has – https.
- For business servers – always have a regular vulnerability and penetration tests performed and scanning done regularly
- Improve and govern the policies of the organization
- Always have a high security password, and also make sure that you have different passwords for different account. If cannot remember try using a secure password manager.
- Never do banking and cash transaction on public computer or public connections.