Introducing the reality of Cyber Attacks in tribal Nagaland

A Staff Reporter
DIMAPUR, FEBRUARY 27

A daylong seminar about cyber security was conducted on Saturday in Dimapur town at the Holy Cross Higher Secondary School’s auditorium. The country chief of global security company General Dynamics International Corporation, Subhimal Bhattacharjee, was the main resource person.
General Dynamics is a global aerospace and defense company. From Gulfstream business jets to submarines to wheeled combat vehicles to communications systems, people around the world depend on its products and services for safety and security.
Speaking amongst hundreds of students from various schools across Dimapur, Subhimal Bhattacharjee spoke about the importance of cyber security and how to stay protected from cyber crime. With the growth of internet use in the country, he said, the country will provide more job opportunities to fight cyber crime. Cyber security jobs do not require any qualification or strict educational standards but skills of programming and various associated skills.
Citing Facebook and Watsapp as one of the common social media platforms in today’s generation, Bhattacharjee said one should be very careful when using information technology platforms such as the internet. He said hackers are not always confined to a country only but involves several countries within seconds and that can have a very big impact on security besides being hard to trace for security. Internet users should understand the cyber attack from a larger angle: The number of growing internet use globally has impacted more vulnerabilities and threat, he said.
Bhattacharjee also explained that basic rule for one to stay protected from cyber attacks is to have a strong and tough password that suggest complex combinations instead of common guessable forms such as names, family names and phone numbers. One should keep changing passwords in order to avoid unwanted problems that can spoil one’s reputation and name, he said. He also suggested that if an account were hacked or attacked, a person should immediately report it to the police before further damage can be inflicted.
Calling hacking a crime, Subhimal Bhattacharjee said that every individual should at least know basic steps to avoid falling victim to cyber attacks. He said that computer technology was one of the most important mediums of ensuring speedy work. By 2025 cyber security-related jobs in the country will increase to lakh. Hence, he said, along with the growth of internet users the need to fight cyber crimes also arises.
The speaker said that the north east region can play an important role in fighting cyber crime ‘as many talented individuals from the region are seen on the rise.’ He advised the students present to use the platform of cyber defender and conceptualize new projects.
The seminar was held under the theme ‘Cyber Defender Dimapur 2016,’ said to be the first of its kind in Nagaland.
Students from various schools participated in the daylong seminar. The second session comprised talks about ethical hacking and cyber security, Phising, Cryptography and SQL injection and System hacking. The session was followed by an interactive session with the students and the audience present.
Citizens’ Factfile” What is Cyber Attack?
Cyber-attack is any type of offensive maneuver employed by individuals or whole organizations that targets computer information systems, infrastructures, computer networks, and/or personal computer devices by various means of malicious acts usually originating from an anonymous source that either steals, alters, or destroys a specified target by hacking into a susceptible system.
These can be labeled as cyber campaign, cyberwarfare or cyberterrorism in different context. Cyber-attacks can range from installing spyware on a PC to attempts to destroy the infrastructure of entire nations. Cyber-attacks have become increasingly sophisticated and dangerous as the Stuxnet worm recently demonstrated.