Technology in the realm of computer science and internet is fast evolving, but at the same time the security aspect, especially the research and development in the sphere of cyber security, is at a much slower pace. And this imbalance could be the major threat in the coming days.
This was the opinion of experts at the session on cyber security at the ongoing AP Science Congress being held at Andhra University, on Wednesday.
According to Dr. Krishna Sastry Pendyala, former cyber security scientist of Government of India, from desktop we have moved into the Web, and the Web has transformed from 1.0 to 2.0 and 3.0. “We are now talking of 4.0 that include Internet of Things (IoT), and this enables access any time, at any place and anything. The scope is wider and so is the threat,” he said.
Giving an example, the experts pointed out that refrigerators are being built that will be embedded with intelligence. Refrigerators will be connected to online sites and as and when vegetable or poultry stock depletes, it automatically sends a request to the online sites and the stock is replenished. And similarly, fans and lights will become intelligent and bills will be paid from ones e-wallet.
In such a scenario and with the society shifting to the cashless mode of transactions, the threat of external intruders has gone up many folds.
“Hackers can hack into your account from a remote device to your intelligent fan or refrigerator, leave alone cellphones and computers, which are more vulnerable, and connect to 100 other zombies (chain computers) and not only hack into your account but also into the main server through simple applications such as DDoS (denial of service attack). Through this application, one can bombard the main server with requests over and above the capacity of the server, and get it gets hanged for hours. This was done to Amazon and Netflix site for nine hours last year and they lost billions of dollars,” said a cyber security scientist. According to the scientist, about 60 % of the requests were sent from cell phones, zombies and other others devices and about .001 were from intelligent pacemakers. The experts pointed out that the world is moving to an age where one living in the USA can administer the insulin dose to his ailing father or mother through a remote device and a hospital can remotely monitor a patient’s heartbeat and if required send in an ambulance within minutes.
But at the same time a hacker can hack into the server and manipulate the health condition, which could be dangerous.
According to Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao, Director of IIT- Delhi, in future there will be no physical wars but they will fought on the cyber space. A country can cripple the financial status of another country and that is why we need more cyber security professionals and the government should think of starting more courses on cyber security at least at the PG level.
Dr. Krishna Sastry pointed out that IoT is like a tiger. “You either ride it or you are in it. IoT devices need regulations and they should not be used blindly,” he said.
According to him, about 5 lakh new malwares are let out in the cyber space everyday and of them about 4 % are unknown. “In such a case, cyber security should be given top importance,” he said.
Another scientist pointed out that what is needed is to see who are behind the hackers. In today’s world the governments are also playing a key role.
The USA accuses Russia of sponsoring and breeding hackers and South Korea make similar allegations against North Korea. In the present situation, we need to first learnt to defend, then get into the offensive and at the same time increase and improve the surveillance, he said.
