The War Of Terror And How To Fight It

A malicious threat is brewing over the heads of businessmen, individuals, water systems, industries and power plants. It is no clandestine issue anymore, as the war of terror has terrorised the entire IT sector. Security of information systems is at threat, while the owners stay crippled of fear at the hands of ransomwares.If your computer starts misbehaving like it loses data, leaks information and denies you of any service, do not rule out the thought that it too might have been a poor victim at the hands of cyber attack. Cyber attacks usually include infiltration of data to breaching it and the state of Denial of Service. It doesn't discriminate the person, institution, system or individual but attacks as a whole or at an entirely personal level.

Cyber - Definition and Derivation
The word cyber can be traced back to the 1940s, when an Englishman, Nobert Wiener (a scientist) invented the word "Cybernetics". Cybernetics was a broad spectrum of science where the study of electronics and mechanical science took place to replace human labour. The word "cyber" was then used as anything which is computerised. Believe it or not, the first cyber attack can be dated back to 1820. The year 1820 saw the invention of abacus. Abacus is referred to as the first mechanical computer of the generation, until the invention of the first analytical computer by Babbage. Abacus spread to countries like India, China and Japan.

The modern inventor of Handlooms Joseph­Marie Jacquard invented a looming device which could loom a similar pattern to many number of fabrics. This prefabricated design style caused the loss of employment in the entire city's population. They took any kind of measures to sabotage the looming device so as to get back their job again. This was the first recorded threat and attack on an information system.

Levelling the battlefield- Hand to hand combat
Catching these offenders who cause such malicious attacks are inevitably necessary. Modern era is a proof that a man cannot step one foot forward without any kind of IT or information system. His entire reason of living- the being for his life is traced back to the continuous and in-substitutable use of Information System. Now when such an integral part of life is at attack, our meaning of being diminishes. So protecting these systems comes under an essential decorandum- A mandatory rule.

Cutting edge technology should be used to combat this War of Terror. This is a battle that needs to be planned beforehand, charted out rigorously, armed up tenuously, committed promisingly, and executed flawlessly. Such a battle requires rigour training and abundant supplies.

What are the emerging attacks and trends now?
This year has seen a lot many attacks till now. Talking only about the nation, we have seen the phishing of cards, victimised people, and cyber pornography. Incidents caused in Mumbai have reflected in our eyes the dark side of Internet and how malicious one’s brain can be. When a schoolboy, terrorised and fed up of physical bullying, merged his classmates’ faces into nude illicit figurines and sold it to a third party web hosting service, then did we come to face that cyber attack can start anyone- no one is left to spare.

Another such major incident which shocked the nation was when a shy and hopeful bride fell in love with her to-be-groom in an arranged marriage. When the groom refused to take her hand, due to family pressure, then did she look into the matter. She found out her stepdad had been sending her fiancé’s family explicit mails about her character in hopes of breaking her marriage as he was the sole owner of the family property till his stepdaughter’s wedding. Such incidents prove that darkness can dwell in anyone’s home.

To combat such attacks, mainly on the network and the internet forefront, some measures are taken listed as below:

1.Survival of the fittest Passwords

When asked for setting a password apt for signing into a website- it gives you with a full range of combinations to choose from. Usually, coming up with recommendations of a strong password by incorporating small letters, capital letters, numbers and special characters, it judges your password mainly on the basis of strong, medium and weak.

Naturally, a strong password with a combination of all the above sequences is difficult and almost impossible to hack.

Until the invention of new authentication technologies, the only mode of a safe and a secure transaction of information over the interconnected network are via such passwords. The stronger, the better.

2.AI attacks
Hollywood, with a number of films has been warning us of breaching and information leak which causes a huge amount of potential threats to the institution and later on spread to the world. When robots make decisions, all hell breaks loose. Usually these films and such media influence a large sect of people into coming forward and rebelling against the ill signs of robotics and AI.

AI has been in its preliminary stages now and there are many such activists groups who are already actively participating in the formation of a rebellious society- an Anti AI group to terminate the former from its baby steps.

A common deployment tactic of the same has already been initialised in the very beginning of 2019, when a harmless autonomous road signal checking device was successfully breaches by the application of stickers on vehicles.

These stickers confused the AI and it generated unexpected results. Hence, reforms should be taken to prevent such groups into seeping deeper into the roots of cyber attacks on AIs.

3.Importance of KYC
When the dark realms of cyber attacking take their preliminary steps from our home, Know-Your-Customer forms are one of the most efficient and important step into preventing further terrorism and traumas. When a particular institution comes in contact with each of his customers individually, it is forewarned of all its consumers’ credentials by effectively maintaining them into a database. Later on, if any suspicion arises among the credits of its consumers, the institution can at least take up a lead and trace the misdeeds of the nuisance maker. KYC is now being validated and checked thoroughly through all the leading institutions as a preventive measure to level the battlefront from cyber threats.

4.Delay in Bank Robberies
A very common cyber attack is bank heists done online. Usually the attacker deals with a large amount of funds which are driven by pure financial motive and anguish. 2018 saw a huge surge of many such cruel bank robberies online. However, these crimes being based completely on monetary aspects usually target the international money front. A huge disadvantage in international money heists is the malleability of time. With an increased timeslot of 24-48 hours of time dedicated to complete fund transfer, it buys the bank almost two days to work on the robbery and catch them before further ado.

A thing to lookout in the coming months is that with this advent of technology, the smart are only becoming smarter. Hence these veteran wrong doers will definitely come up with a strategy which will enable real time access into the foreign markets. It’s a race against time- before the evil; we should make new ways to combat them with a brand new angst and motive.

5.King of crypto-currency at its worst
The wild surge of crypto currencies which drew millions of people crazy by investing in them has turned in another shocker to the market. Bitcoin which blew people off their minds with the sudden surge in the profits by befittingly providing them with double the profits they invested for- has come crashing down face first with a 40% downfall in the stock. This drop has scared off potential users and consumers that they are going to walk far away even with the slightest drop of hint of crypto-currency.

Securing yourself and your family, along with your institution is one of the greatest needs of today. Where security is facing such pangs of horror, your destiny lay only in your hands- how you will mould it into something fruitful or something equally horrifying.