Agape Blog

Cyber Crime is a daunting reality today. It affects every individual connected by a computer or technology. You may not be a hacker but your computer is a potential weapon for criminals to use to attack and damage countries, corporations and even mastermind the destruction of human lives. “Everyone must be aware of the risks that cyber crime and cyber terrorism poses, as ignorance may lead to huge losses and even endanger lives.” Even the participants of the EC-Council Asia Pacific Roundtable Forum unanimously responded to this statement.

Information security is not simply the responsibility of network administrators only, it is the responsibility of every internet user as their ignorance may result in millions of dollars in losses and even the loss of lives. The lack of education among both the users and authorities often results in allowing criminals easy access to even the most high tech security areas. One of the leading cyber crime expert said “No one treats a cyber crime like a murder case, often evidence cannot be used legally as it has been contaminated by the victim or the incident handler, allowing these criminals to escape prosecution.”

Truly, many times people simply ignore to follow certain basic rules like keeping their passwords private or securing their WiFi connections. And they only realise about theor mistakes when it is too late. This is where proper legislation, awareness and education among all levels right from the top management level to even security guards in any corporation is required to ensure the eradication of cyber crimes.

How many times have we seen companies suffer huge losses for the simple reason of security lapse! Traditionally security is perceived as an expenditure that erodes our bottom lines and budgets. Such an approach towards security needs to be reinvented to keep pace with the dynamic changes in our IT security landscape. To answer such various security threats, a 3 day conference began yesterday in Singapore that would conclude tomorrow.

The annual event called Governmentware 2008, is presented by The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Singapore. This year’s theme, “Positive Security: Empowering Business Models of the Future”, highlights the need for all players in the infocomm ecosystem to adopt a more forward-looking paradigm in confronting IT security issues. The conference will be filled with action-packed demos with an attempt to encourage participants to embrace IT security as an opportunity to solve critical problems.

The conference program aims to highlight on the following points:

1. Security Issues related to Electronic Identities
2. Personal Digital Protection in the New Cyber Universe
3. Latest Cryptography and Biometrics
4. Critical Infocomm Infrastructure Protection
5. Database Security
6. Secure Wireless Sensor Devices
7. Wireless Security
8. Secure Collaboration Framework
9. nline Forensics
10. DIVA (Dynamic Isolation of Virtualised Applications)

This week has been very busy so far as we have been working hard for the release of our new mobile forensics product. This product will help the forensic investigators as it would be available in different versions.

Anyways, this week we are presenting the links which will provide helpful information about the importance of information security and the new updates to the rules. We hope they would be helpful for everyone.

1. Are You Familiar With the New E-Discovery Rules? Read more
2. 6 burning questions about network security. Read more
3. With so many ways for people to conduct their lives on the internet, their personal information ends up online. Safeguarding yourself against cyber threats becomes necessary. Read more

It is need of the hour that every internet user is made aware of the cyber laws and security. Many of us do use the internet for various reasons, but are unaware of what rules should be followed and what to avoid while surfing the internet. I have met numerous people who claim that internet surfing is their hobby or passion, but they are unaware of the possible threats that exist in the cyber space. And such people fall prey to some educated techies and have to face some harsh moments like Ken Haywood or the Kamat family have undergone in the past few months.

Also, with the recent bomb blasts in India, the Indian government has adopted some strict guidelines to prevent cyber terrorism. There are many bodies which are working on the same grounds at the local level. Last year Agape had tied up with the local police authorities to start a campaign against terrorism called as Mission Mrityunjay. And there are some institutes that are following up with the same initiative. Microbyte Computer Academy in Nagpur, is organising a seminar on cyber awareness today. This seminar can be attended by anyone who uses the internet, be it a computer professional or a housewife or parents. This is a great step taken to create awarness on cyber security amongst the Nagpurians.

I was researching on cyber security and i came up with an article wherein the the famous American journalist - Brian Krebs interviewed FBI’s cyber division head - James Finch. I found it helpful as it provides insight into how the FBI sees cyber crime and hence thought of sharing the same.

Here’s the link to the article:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/08/qa_with_fbis_cyber_crime_chief.html?hpid=sec-tech