The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), Doha chapter, organised a seminar on ‘Watch the hacker in action and learn how to protect’, at the Ramada Plaza Hotel.
The key note speaker was Balwant Rathore, vice president (Research) for Open Information Systems Security Group (OISSG), a non-profit organisation registered in the United Kingdom.
He is the author of Information Systems Security Assessment Framework along with the team in OISSG.
Rathore conducted “live demonstrations” of cutting-edge ethical hacking technologies. He displayed how a hacker steals one’s password and gets access to emails, credit card numbers end up with cyber criminals and the way ‘phishing’ is performed.
He also demonstrated how an organisation’s enterprise resource planning, salary and other ‘critical databases’ get into the hand of hackers and explained the weaknesses in social networks.
He demonstrated how an organisation’s data can become insecure because of the internet and the “intelligent crawling technologies” developed by search engines.
Rathore explained simple measures that could protect against these threats. They include the selection of a “right password”, storage of passwords in laptops / desktops and careful internet / USB use.
Responding to a query, he said “There is no absolute security for business and we don’t need it. I think the point to risk management is not to try and operate your business in a risk-free environment. It’s to tip the scale to your advantage. So it becomes strategic rather than just defensive.
Introducing the speaker, ICAI Doha Chapter Chairman Kurian Kuriakose said: “Information security is no more an exclusive domain of the techies. Each one of us and our organisations must be aware of the threats we face in everyday life. Be it electronic banking or the use of credit and ATM cards, there are dangers lurking in the background. Awareness is the first level protection against these dangers and this has prompted us to choose this topic.”
Venkat Ramamurthy, ICAI chapter secretary welcomed the gathering and M.Ganesh Vishnampettai, vice-chairman proposed a vote of thanks. |
