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SVIMS Director and Vice-Chancellor B. Vengamma lighting a lamp to formally launch the cybercrime awareness programme conducted by the police department for the medical students in Tirupati on Wednesday.

An awareness meet on safe Internet practices was held for the students of Sri Venkateswara University University (SVU) and Sri Venkateswara Institute of Medical Sciences (SVIMS) here on Wednesday.

“Cyber criminals on the prowl can easily track our digital footprint, steal our identity and resort to impersonation,” cyber expert I.L. Narasimha Rao cautioned the college students.

Addressing the students in two sessions, Mr. Narasimha Rao, who is a Senior Manager with CyberPeace Foundation, said seemingly common acts like browsing a website, and liking and commenting on posts on social media platforms could be used by impersonators to recreate an account in our name.

Turning to the youth, Mr. Narasimha Rao said the incognito mode and Virtual Private Network (VPN) used as a protected network connection do not ensure total privacy as third parties could still snoop over the websites being visited by the users. He also cautioned them tactics like ‘phishing’, ‘vishing’ and ‘smishing’ being used by cybercriminals to steal our passwords and gain access to our accounts.

“After cracking the whip on websites and apps that could potentially compromise our security, the Government of India has recently banned 232 more apps,” he noted.

Additional Superintendent of Police (Crime) B.H. Vimala Kumari appealed to cyber victims to call 1930 or the Cyber Mitra’s helpline 9121211100. SVIMS Director B. Vengamma stressed the need for caution with smartphones becoming an indispensable tool for students, be it for online education, seeking information, entertainment or for conducting digital transactions.

Reference Link: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/students-cautioned-against-leaving-digital-footprint-at-cybercrime-awareness-meet-in-tirupati/article66486031.ece

18th November 2022 CyberPeace Foundation in association with Universal Acceptance has successfully conducted the workshop on Universal Acceptance and Multilingual Internet for the students and faculties of Royal Global University under CyberPeace Center of Excellence (CCoE). CyberPeace Foundation has always been engaged towards the aim of spreading awareness regarding the various developments, avenues, opportunities and threats regarding cyberspace. The same has  been the keen principle of the CyberPeace Centre of Excellence setup in collaboration with various esteemed educational institutes. We at CyberPeace Foundation would like to take the collaborations and our efforts to a new height of knowledge and awareness by proposing a workshop on UNIVERSAL ACCEPTANCE AND MULTILINGUAL INTERNET. This workshop was instrumental in providing the academia and research community a wholesome outlook towards the multilingual spectrum of internet including Internationalized domain names and email address Internationalization.

‍Date –18th November 2022

‍Time – 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM

‍Duration – 2 hours

‍Mode - Online

‍Audience – Academia and Research Community

‍Participants Joined- 130

‍Crowd Classification - Engineering students (1st and 4th year, all streams) and Faculties members

‍Organizer : Mr. Harish Chowdhary : UA Ambassador Moderator: Ms. Pooja Tomar, Project coordinator cum trainer

‍GuestSpeakers:Mr. Abdalmonem Galila, Abdalmonem: Vice Chair , Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) ,Mr. Mahesh D Kulkarni: Director, Evaris Systems and Former Senior Director, CDAC, Government of India, Mr. Akshat Joshi, Founder Think Trans First session was delivered by Mr. Abdalmonem Galila, Abdalmonem: Vice Chair , Universal Acceptance Steering Group (UASG) “Universal Acceptance( UA) and why UA matters?”

• What is universal acceptance?
• UA is cornerstone to a digitally inclusive internet by ensuring all domain names and email addresses in all languages, script and character length.
• Achieving UA ensures that every person has the ability to navigate the internet.
• Different UA issues were also discussed and explained.
• Tagated systems by the UA and implication were discussed in detail.

Second Session was delivered by Mr. Akshat Joshi, Founder Think Trans on “Universal Acceptance to the IDNsand the economic Landscape”

• What is Universal Acceptance?
• The internet has had standards that allow people to use domain names and email addresses in their native scripts. Software developers need to bring their applications up-to-date so that consumers can use their chosen identity.
• A typical problem is that an IDN email address is not recognised by a website form as a valid email address.
• The importance of adopting IDNs z Enable citizens to use their own identity online (correct spelling, native language) z Relates to language, culture and content z Promotes local and regional content z Allows businesses and politicians to better target their messages.

Third session was delivered by Mr. Mahesh D Kulkarni, ES Director Evaris on the topic of “IDNs in Indian languages perspective- challenges and solutions”.

• The multilingual diversity of India was focused on and its impact.
• Most students were not aware of what Unicode, IDNS is and their usage.
• Students were briefed by giving real time examples on IDN, Domain name implementation using local language.
• In depth knowledge of and practical exposure of Universal Acceptance and Multilingual Internet has been served to the students.
• Tools and Resources for Domain Name and Domain Languages were explained.
• Languages nuances of Multilingual diversity of India explained with real time facts and figures.
• Given the idea of IDN Email,Homograph attack,Homographic variant with proper real time examples.
• Explained about the security threats and IDNA protocols.
• Given the explanation on ABNF.
• Explained the stages of Universal Acceptance.

Introduction

MGM Resorts, which is an international company, has suffered an ongoing cyberattack which led to the shutdown of a number of its computer systems, including its website, in response to a cybersecurity issue. MGM Resorts International is in touch with external cybersecurity experts to resolve the issue since it has affected its entire Computer systems. MGM is a larger entity and operates thousands of hotel rooms across Las Vegas and the United States. MGM Resorts shared about the incident and posted that MGM recently identified a cybersecurity issue affecting some of the Company's systems. Promptly after detecting the issue, they quickly began an investigation with assistance from leading external cybersecurity experts. MGM has notified law enforcement and took prompt action to protect systems and data, including putting down certain systems. MGM further stated that the investigation is ongoing. 

‍The issue 

Basic operations such as the online reservation and booking system MGM have been affected and shut down due to the cybersecurity issue faced by a lot of visitors. Since earlier times, casino security has been the state of the art as they were very vulnerable to attacks by robbers and con artists. This is what we have also seen in a lot of movies. In today's time, con artists and robbers are now strengthened by cyber tactics. This is exactly what was seen in the case of the MGM attack. 

MGM Resorts is home to best-in-class amenities and facilities for guests, but with the increase in tourist traction, the vulnerabilities and the scope of cyber attacks have also increased. This is also because of open wifis in the establishments and the transition of casinos to e-casinos, thus causing a major shift towards digital and technology-based intervention for better customer experience and streamlining a lot of operations. 

How real is the threat? 

As reported by MGM Resorts, the following systems were impacted in the cyber security attack: 

• Slots Machines: The slot machines placed in the casino suddenly went offline and displayed an error message for the players. Some players who were already using the slot machines lost their bets and were unable to withdraw their winnings. 
• Room Keys: Some of the guests reported that the room keys became unresponsive, and in some cases, the replacement keys were also inactive for some time, causing massive chaos at the reception.  
• Booking Status: All the bookings in today's time are made online; this was one of the worst-hit segments of the cyber attacks. Most of the bookings made automatically were put on hold, and the confirmations could be made only from the hotel reception, thus causing massive cancelling of the bookings and both the hotel and customers losing out on money.
• MGM App: The official app of MGM Resorts was completely down, thus causing a situation of confusion and panic among the guests. The users also received notifications to speak to different customer care executives, but some of the numbers were unattentive and seemed to be operated by bad actors. 
• Data breach: The main focus of the cyber attack was dedicated to committing a data breach. The attack led to the breach of personal data of most of the users registered on the app or on the system of MGM Resorts. 

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Conclusion 

The cyber attack on the tourism industry is a major and growing concern for the industry and its customers. Seeing the volatility of the data and the regular inflow of personal information this makes the hotel's cyber security system a vulnerable choice for bad actors. The cyber attack was no less than a fire sale, where in all the segments of the services offered were impacted. Similar attacks were reported by MGM in 2019 and 2020, and subsequently, the safety measures were also deployed, but the bad actors have hit the resorts chain owners again, in such cases the most paramount defence is having a safe and regularly updated firewall, upskilling of staff for IT issues and attacks, active reporting and investigation mechanisms for assisting the LEAs. In the times of rising cyberattacks, one needs to be critical of their data management and digital footprints. The sooner we adopt safe, secure and resilient cyber hygiene practices, the safer our future will be.  

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References:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/mgm-resorts-shuts-down-it-systems-after-cyberattack/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2023/09/11/mgm-cyber-attack-impact-resorts-hotels-us/70828503007/

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/12/mgm-resorts-cybersecurity-incident-forces-system-outage.html

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