‘Ethical hacking should be part of school curriculum’

Hyderabad: Ankit Fadia, author and ethical hacker, at the launch of his 17th book ‘Social: 50 Ways to Improve Your Professional Life’, at NKM Grand on Wednesday spoke about the complications that would arise upon making Hyderabad a smart city.

Lauding the KCR government’s proposal to create wi-fi zones in the city, the cyber security expert said that the government should take appropriate security measures to prevent cyber crimes.

"While it (creation of wi-fi zones) has a lot of positives like increase in productivity, efficiency and ease of internet access for all, it is important that the government takes proper security measures like identification, verification through SMS, maintenance of user logs and others," he said.

Ankit said he would write to the Telangana government about the best practices to be adopted when it rolls out free WiFi very soon.

Anecdotal data evidence shows that in just four months of this year 7,000 Indian sites were attacked and over 50 lakh computers hijacked by botnet armies – which might just be the tip of the iceberg. Over 900 crores have been lost in Nigerian scams alone. Talking about the need for ethical hackers, Ankit said, “Majority of critical computer controlled systems like power stations and grids, dams, oil and gas pipelines, steel plants are all vulnerable to cyber attacks. India would need 4.75 lakh ethical hackers by 2015 to secure digital assets. But, we hardly have even one ethical hacker. Schools and colleges must include ethical hacking and computer security in their curriculum.”