Life is evolving and everything revolving around life is also evolving. One such integral part of our life is technology. Have we evolved from primitive to smart living without encountering crises? No. In every step of our progress we have faced innumerable hurdles and crises but undeterred, our journey is continuing. The crises are myriads, ranging from internal conflicts, wars and pandemics to natural disasters. They are not of the past but are perennial and have become a part and parcel of our lives. If we count on the crises which haunt us right now threatening our future alarmingly, then there can be many. But a crisis need not be the one which kills us directly! Without hesitation, we can say there’s a crisis hounding not only individuals, Institutions and Industries but also Governments. Server hacks, data thefts, ransom attacks, phishing attacks and identity thefts have become very common now. Even nations’ defence systems are under threat of getting compromised. Millions have lost their lifelong savings, Institutions have lost control of their vital data and the economy is under attack globally. The WEF (World Economic Forum) has sent danger signals to tame this dragon which is rearing its ugly head. Yes, you heard it right! We are only discussing “CYBERCRIME”. This is a global concern and has piqued everyone’s interest recently. Discussing this here is an opportunity for us to spread awareness across the globe and deliberate on the measures to be adopted to prevent, cure and eradicate this economic pandemic to safeguard life interests.
Know the Gravity!
Understanding the magnitude of cybercrime happening worldwide will scare the daylight out of everyone. The WEF report is an eye-opener and the statistical data speaks for itself. Knowing the gravity of the situation makes us understand and accept the problem without brushing aside saying “It’s not my problem” The entire globe has to own it and fight it as if we are encountering a pandemic, then only it can be eradicated.
As per World Economic Forum around 33 billion accounts are projected to be breached for the year 2023 amounting to 2398 accounts per day @97 cyber victims per hour. Compared to 8 lakh attacks recorded at an average of 1 attack in 39 seconds in 2022 this is a quantum leap. The year 2023 is a big year for cybercrime. In 2022 alone a whopping $8.44 trillion has gone into the drain due to cybercrimes and is predicted to jump to $23.84 trillion by 2027.
On the Institutional front, the cost of data breaches in 2022 is $4.35 million compared to $4.24 million in 2021. The costliest cybercrime is investment fraud with an average of $70811 per victim. During the pandemic year 2020, there has been a jump of 358% compared to 2019 as most businesses were operating online. The Country-wise data compiled shows that there has been an abnormal increase in cybercrime in China, Japan, and South Korea to the tune of 4852%, 1423% and 1007% respectively during the pandemic compared to 2019. Server attacks in Asia account for 20%, Ransomware attacks account for 11% and Data thefts account for 10%. It’s also forecasted to have an e-commerce fraud in the retail sector amounting to $48 billion globally. To talk specific details about India it has seen a jump of 15.3% in 2022 compared to 2021.This is the tip of the iceberg, rattling but points us to our responsibility.
Starve the scammers! Stop the spread!
The heinous growth of cybercrime is synonymous with cancerous growth and hence needs to be treated like cancer. Having got infested with loads of crimes our first aim is to halt their growth rate. So we should look at the ways and means to stop the spread and heal the wound first and then look at long-term solutions for prevention. How? To halt the spread we should strengthen the existing laws internationally for identifying and punishing the scammers. Normally Scammers escape, as the crimes are happening remotely in an undisclosed place and environment, unlike physical crimes which leave much forensic evidence and CCTV recordings giving leads for grabbing the thieves. Despite having Internet protocols and IP addresses, tracing scammers becomes a challenge.
Cybercrimes have put us in over-our-head situations most of the time as manoeuvrability of detection activities puts investigators in a sticky wicket. So we need to have cyber security e-patrolling which can detect the intruders’ identity online, cripple their software and record their activities like a ‘black box’. Identifying scammers and jamming their activities will starve them of ammunition and act as a deterrent. The recordings of the black box giving a lead to trace, detain and punish the criminals will add muscle to the probe. Once the cyber laws are strengthened the National Cyber Security Index (NCSI) has to be improved across the globe which can bring down the crime rate considerably.
Countries like the Czech Republic have the highest 98.33 NCSI whereas countries like Iraq, Zimbabwe Libya, etc have a very low index of around 10 to 20%. Developed countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the USA have around 80% but still have more cyber attacks. Countries that are better placed should share their wisdom and practices with other neighbours and establish a dome of protection worldwide. This is an emergency measure to stop the spread and tame the shrew, but preventive measures have to be put in place concurrently to kill this cancerous menace.
Prevention –The Key
Creating mass awareness, building robust systems and educating children from the primary school level are the salient interventions which can contribute to a Systemic approach to prevent this scam.
1. Creating Mass awareness:
Institutions can enhance their custom awareness through online programmes or through their relationship Managers to help ward off their ignorance to a greater extent. Such activities can also breed a customer-friendly culture which can help identify the scams very quickly before they get out of control. This calls for responsibility on the institutions to establish robust systems with credibility which can guarantee customers100 per cent protection from the sinister designs of the scammers.
2. Building Robust Systems:
With multiple firewalls, we can mitigate to a greater extent the susceptibility. ‘Digi-Yatra’ introduced in airports recently for quickly mobilising more volumes of passengers in a reduced time, deploys a face-read application and digital scanning of boarding passes instead of physical verification of the printed boarding passes. We need to think of using such a system in financial transactions and data management.
To ensure the safety of such digital transactions we may have to fall back on the blockchain concept which is a very transparent way for data movement as data are stored in blocks and linked like chains. Every block is like a ledger and any illegal tampering of data in any block will make the entire system collapse like a pack of cards as data are stored like a stack. The blockchain concept has graduated to a third-generation level prompting us to adopt such a technology akin to the ‘Bitcoin’ application which is adopting the same technology. Already some organisations like Singapore Trading Corporation and Amazon have embraced this technology and reported to have almost an attack-free environment.
3. Catching young and preaching:
The future is going to be ruled by Artificial Intelligence and data science. The same AI getting into the hands of hackers will lead to a massive disaster for the economy. Data theft and illegal mining of data will lead to misplaced identity which may even go unnoticed as servers will be operating at terabits speed and transactions will be taking place in nanoseconds. Such disasters can be prevented through constant vigil by conducting e-surveillance across networks and safeguarding the interests of individuals and institutions.
This calls for preparing future generations to become competent professionals who can act as warriors of the web on a real-time basis. This can be done by integrating data literacy into the primary education curriculum itself. The challenges of the new generative AI that will be dominating the companies planning to adopt big data and cloud computing in the coming decade can be met by such skilled youth only. The more we adopt newer technologies the more severe will be the risk of cyber-attacks and so we should be more focused on sharpening our saw regularly.
All said and done:
The more we become intelligent and protective the cyber criminals become more crooked and wretched. Until we achieve zero cybercrime by reaching that level of the state of art technology there will be victims undoubtedly. What can be the cure or prescription for such victims to restore their original financial health? The only remedy everyone will be looking for is systemic safeguard and compensation. The Government should take responsibility for compensating the loss of the victims by designing a compensatory mechanism to win over public confidence.
To grab your attention:
The ongoing wars create an atmosphere of unrest and fear in the minds of people across the globe. Suspicion is looming large that the present conflict may escalate into a third world war. We can’t even imagine the amount of destruction if the cyber attacks are unleashed into the most secret defence systems of powerful nations! If it goes out of control the world will be paying the price for no reason. The idea here is not to create fear-mongering but to caution the world and world leaders to take cognisance of the threats and prepare themselves to safeguard the defence system by making them risk-free.
Let us learn to see the monster as a whole from its roar before it fully comes out of its hole.
Take aways
understand the gravity, halt the monster, strengthen the preventive mechanisms, help the victims and send the message to the world leaders to make their defence system risk- free.
By: M.Nizamudeen
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