Steps To Insure Yourself Against Online Hacking

As online hacking into personal and financial data becomes more sophisticated and invasive, take these steps to insure yourself against losses.

- Renu Yadav

Sunetra Aggarwal (not her real name), a Delhi-based IT professional, is an avid Internet user. With rising digitisation, it has been a cinch for her to do all her banking, shopping and cab/ticket bookings online. She is also active on social media and accesses endless entertainment via OTT platforms. It was convenient and cost-efficient for some time until she faced a couple of phishing and vishing attacks. She got a mail, presumably from the Income Tax Department, prompting her to claim a tax refund by giving bank details for money transfer. The vishing (voice or VoIP phishing) attempt that followed was more alluring. The person who called her said he was a bank employee and needed credit card details to convert her reward points into cash. A cautious Aggarwal emerged unscathed, but these incidents underline the dire consequences if rising cyberattacks against consumers are not addressed.

“According to a survey by Symantec Norton, close to 978 million individuals all over the world fell prey to cybercrimes in 2017. An AssochamNEC study in the same year estimated that cybercrimes in India rose 457 per cent between 2011 and 2016. The biggest financial loss during this period amounted to 70 lakh,” says Jayant Saran, Partner at Deloitte India.