Cyber security expert Dr. Rakshit Tandon expressed grave concern at rising cases of child abuse and crime due to digital exploitation, and emphasised on the need of vigilant parenting. He also harped on upgrading digital quotient of the professionals and other measures to tackle challenges all around in the cyber sphere.
At a workshop for Mediapersons and Lawyers in particular organised by Cogniflux in Panaji, Dr Tandon warned people to refrain from answering video calls from unusual numbers, clicking on urls denoting surprise bonus/ warning viral photo threats, and files with suffix – .apk. He also appealed to people to come up with strong passwords which in India are commonly observed to be names of gods, birthdays, spouses or children’s alpha numericals and as such easily hackable.
Dr. Tandon was in deep pain when explaining how children aged 10-12 have fallen into a trap of playing the mature games like COD and Roblocks online that lead to criminal actions as he cited cases that have rocked the country. He also pointed out how some parents are making money by forcing their kids into becoming ‘influencers’ – the act he labelled as digital child labour.
Dr. Tandon, who trains and helps police forces around the country to crack the cyber crimes by unearthing digital evidence, also questioned the greedy and ignorant approach from quite an alarming number of techies, doctors and engineers for being defrauded.
Dr. Tandon called on people to tighten up their security settings in the Gmail, Instagram and WhatsApp setup on the phone. He also advised to work with at least three trusted devices to have Multi Factor Authentication security method going for them.
With senior citizens emerging as the widely targeted section by the fraudsters, Tandon advocated having a second Sim card in a mobile phone of basic model and not smart phone, where they transact with sufficient funds for day to day expenses. They have to guard their life savings via their primary phone number to avoid the crucial data loss that may lead the cyber crooks to the savings and investments records.
Dr.Tandon also announced that he will be conducting courses in Goa where he would be training people to thwart the cyber attacks. To get in touch with him, write an email on info@rakshittandon.com
