Cybersecurity is becoming increasingly essential as every individual intensely relies on technology every day. While technology has helped people stay connected to each other, this connectivity has also made us vulnerable to malicious cyber-attacks. Cybersecurity measures need to be taken in order to avoid falling a victim to these cyber-attacks.
Cyber Shield is a campaign that is designed to educate students and other individuals about the importance of cyber security and the risks they might face online. The campaign provides different precautions that can be implemented by the students and other individuals to protect themselves from malicious attackers and hackers. The campaign also offers various tools including encryption tools, antivirus software, network security monitoring tools, etc.
There have been various cyber-attacks globally. The most recent one was in the year 2017, called Equifax data breach. In March 2017, the personal information of approximately 147 people was stolen from Equifax, a credit reporting agency that assesses the financial health of the Americans. The agency was criticised for their lax security measures and their sloppy response to the breach.
There have been such cyber breaches in India as well. In the year 2021, Air India airline’s data was breached. Over 4.5 million passengers were victims of the breach, in which their personal data was compromised. The Indian Government was accused of leaking Covid-19 lab test results of around 1500 Indian patients. The data was put out into the public and anyone could get access to it through Google. The data comprised names, date of birth, the centre where the patients were tested for Covid, and their results etc.
Many individuals have also faced cyber-attacks during their daily activities online. “I once received a thumbnail on my phone. I was asked to click on it to see whether the person in the video was me. I was tensed and worried that it might be a personal video of mine that got leaked. However, my friend stopped me and told me that it is a fraud, and it was designed to hack into my Instagram account,” said a 20-year-old student in Kothanur, Bangalore, who wishes her identity to remain anonymous.
There has been a similar fraud faced by a middle-aged-woman. “Few months back, I received a mail from my friend, saying that she got into an accident and needs money. Later we discovered that her mail was hacked, through which they were able to contact her most recent friends in mail. The hackers were trying to steal money from us. However, we got in touch with our friend, and she told us that she never sent such a mail and that she was completely fine,” she said.
In conclusion, these examples show how cyber-attacks have a devastating effect on the businesses and individuals. Therefore, Cyber Shield was created to guide people to safer online experiences.