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Awareness of cyber crimes high in State

By R Dutta Choudhury

GUWAHATI, Nov 4 - A fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic is the digital space becoming more prone to cyber attacks. But the positive aspect is that the awareness of people of Assam about possibility of cyber attacks is quite high.

While observing the month of October as the Cyber Safety Month, the Assam Police, in collaboration with Cyber Space Foundation carried out a survey among the people of the State and it was found that majority of people are aware of the possibility of cyber attacks.

Giving details of the outcome of the survey, police sources said that the respondents expressed a deep understanding on cybercrime which was inclusive of both the crimes committed with the intent of stealing the data from computer hardware. The respondents are also aware of other crimes like online harassment , hacking , online impersonation and spreading fake news.

Sources said that 62 per cent of the respondents knew that cybercrime can be reported at the police station and 58 per cent of respondents were also aware that Assam Police has dedicated cyber police stations and police personnel to deal with cybercrimes. However, only 16 per cent of the respondents stated that they have reported to the police when exposed to cybercrime and most of them preferred reporting to the website or doing nothing at all. Most of the respondents are aware of the steps they need to take to secure themselves while using the internet. About 71 per cent respondents knew that they are not supposed to click on a pop-up window that appears on the internet. About 73 per cent of the respondents were also aware that it was not safe to use public WiFi connections which are not password protected and 74 per cent of the respondents were aware not to download mobile applications from sources other than Apple store or Google store.

Interestingly, majority of the respondents admitted that they faced some form of cyber attack in the past one year. About 63 per cent of the respondents received spam messages in their e mail and around 25 per cent received hate messages on social media platforms. More than 90 per cent of the internet users use social networking sites, around 74 per cent use the internet to read news and articles, while more than 80 per cent use the online marketing sites.

The Cyber Safety Month campaign garnered over 1.9 million impressions online across the platforms of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp and Youtube. Assam Police and CSF reached out to over 5000 students and individuals to create awareness about the various forms of cyber threats. A series of webinars were also organized to raise awareness on key cyber safety issues such as misinformation, financial frauds, responsible online behaviour and cybercrime redressal, where young SPs from the department interacted directly with the audience.

Every year, October is observed as Cyber Security Awareness Month, globally. The aim of the month-long campaign is to raise awareness on cyber safety. Cyber Safety Month came at an apt time, in sync with International standards and in consonance with Government of India�s observance of Cyber Security Month. The idea was to initiate conversations on Cyber Safety issues in an innovative and interactive manner to not only connect the citizens, but also to equip them with the necessary knowledge base & resources to mitigate cyber safety threats. During the campaign, the special focus was to raise awareness on the responsible use of the Internet and highlight the importance of digital well-being, privacy issues and promote discussions on how to safeguard one�s online presence.

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