CYBER CRIME & PERSONAL SECURITY – PART I

Cyber crime is on the rise despite all security measures. I think it’s high time to remain alert and moreover educate ourselves on security awareness needs to prevent such mishappening with us.  I remember many sms i received in my mobile phone in recent past. Even i have discovered those at my email inbox (and not spam folder) asking for personal details to claim lottery as the 1st,2nd and 3rd winner. Fortunately, i didn’t fall in the greed trap and ignored those. After few days i found similar emails again. On a second thought i realized i should have reported such email as spam rather than ignoring the same to prevent such messages come again. Fortunately, we have better reporting platforms these days compared to older days.

Sometimes cyber criminals use the general information from government to public and financial information from banks to public. They use this information to write fancy messages and email that look genuine. They share the same with a group of people who someway (without their true knowledge) disclosed personal information like phone number and email on unofficial media like some social networking sites. Because of lack of awareness we hardly visit the security settings page on networking sites where we have privacy option available. I think we should try and keep secret the phone number registered with bank accounts. Most of us having dual sim option these days and we can do this. Another measure is registering with DND service to prevent promotional calls and messages.

Despite all these measures, the fraudulent and suspicious behaviour is on the rise. They are successful at times with their tricks to impersonate and gather personal details. Technology is evolving with time and what was my learning a year back may not be relevant today to prevent such crime. From my experience i can guess they are not common men who cause these crimes. They are well educated techies with high tech gadgets. They target common men who are either not or less educated in their area of specialization.

So, for us education and timely awareness is the key. By timely I mean sharpening our learning with time and keeping ourselves updated to server the present purpose.

If you like this post, i would like to hear from you and learn from your personal experience.

Have a great weekend!