Cybercriminals are secretly entering people’s devices, computers, and social media, collecting personal information and robbing them, for lack of user awareness. As a result, cyber threat is rising, whose consequences take a longer period to fix, and put more people at risk because of unawareness.
Evermore sophisticated cyberattacks involving malware, phishing, machine learning and artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and others have placed data and assets of corporations, governments, and individuals at constant risk. In recent times, cybercriminals or hackers are targeting people from all spheres of society. Such a catastrophe by cybercriminals is taking an awful toll. They are continuously trying to hack people’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, and other social accounts to get personal information.
On the other hand, some others are always setting traps to hack mobile financing accounts of the people. Despite biometric SIM card registration, hackers are making similar mobile numbers using different mobile apps, and taking advantage of modern technology, are also becoming successful in hacking others personal information and demanding big amounts from the victims.
However, police say, due to increase of mass awareness and strict position, cybercrimes have reduced in comparison to those in the previous year. There is no alternative but to increase mass awareness among the people. Technology experts say, each of the individual user, is their protector. The more awareness they can have in them, the less the incident will take place. They emphasize on individuals securing accounts with caution.
Cyber Crime Awareness Foundation (CCAF) in its 2019 research showed that despite the Digital Security Act formulation, people are yet to get its advantages. Despite having trouble or cyber threat, 80.6 percent of the total people, do not seek assistance of law enforcement. Of those who seek legal aid, 19.2 percent get satisfactory results. However, it was only eight percent during 2018. On the other hand, 63 percent of victims do not know the law.
CCAF president Kazi Mostafiz told Bangladesh Post, cyber awareness is the major weapon of cybersecurity. It is our combined responsibility to increase awareness. For this, public and private partnership is essential. “On January 28, we will place some of our demands with the government, especially for data privacy. The more we are digitizing ourselves, the more data, where data privacy is important, opens up. This is where we have to work a lot,” he added.
“To ensure safe internet use, the government has to have surveillance of the international gateway, while parents also have to be cautious about how their children are using the internet. As the youths are our main weapon, building awareness among them is crucial,” he further added.
In a different analysis, it was learned that at present there are 11 steps in the virtual world of the country. Counter-Terrorism and Transnational Crime of Dhaka Metropolitan Police Additional Deputy Commissioner, Nazmul Islam said, due to user ignorance, apathy and technical weakness of social media sites including Facebook, cybercriminals are taking these chances. Such identification must be uprooted.
