Category: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

  • Keeping your child safe in the cyberspace

    Keeping your child safe in the cyberspace

    Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, children around the globe are staying at home. Those children who used to spend most of their day time in school are burdening their parents at home and parents have a straightforward solution to skip that – giving their smart devices. Children get busy with those internet-connected devices, mostly playing games, watching videos, or chatting with family members and friends. For some days those activities looked okay, but nowadays parents started worrying about the time their children are spending in front of the screen. As smart devices and the Internet is mandatory for education and entertainment, balancing other activities and screen time seems challenging. Parenting is getting tougher as the lockdown progress, and they needed to find out ways to maximize the extraordinary benefits of the Internet, reducing the possible harms. Online sexual abuse, Cyberbullying, Sharing of Harmful Content, etc. are commonly seen risks children are facing. Strangers or even the known person may send sexual content to the child. They may also receive mean comments, messages, and posts on social media. Similarly, harmful contents such as incitement to suicide and self-harm; violent or xenophobic content; misinformation about COVID-19; or marketing that is not appropriate for children may also reach their screen. So, parents should stay aware of what their children are watching or doing on the screen and talk to them about what the children learned or experienced. 

    To keep their children out of potential hazards, parents need to make the rules for ‘Internet and device usage’ in the house prioritizing the learning and creative activities. A most important part of such rules is that those should be properly followed by the parents as well because children imitate the behavior of their seniors – no smart devices while eating or in bed means no one is allowed to do so not just the little ones. Here are some tips parents need to follow, consider the age and maturity factor of a child before applying rules.

    • Set the screentime for various activities: Set how much time you want your children to spend online – how long for games? How long for chatting? Or learning? Or can they use the device while eating? Or in bed? Define it in a way that your child will not be disappointed with you.
    • Give access to appropriate content: The Internet is full of various contents but parents have to find a way to show the contents suitable for the child. For example, YouTube Kids provide the curated selections of content, parental control features, and filtering of videos deemed inappropriate viewing by kids. Similarly, other media-services providers such as Netflix, Prime Video also have the children version. Help the child to identify age-appropriate apps, games, and entertainment materials.
    • Talk to the child about what they are doing online:  Due to lockdown you are also free like never before so why don’t you talk about what children are doing online, what they learned, or any problem they faced. Talk about what is good to do on the Internet and what is not in their understandable way. Teach them life lessons, social values, respect, moral behavior with the help of stories, they will learn with enjoyment. 
    • Make aware of science and technical tools and inventions: Make your child familiar with various scientific inventions and how those inventions are making the world better. Teach them how they can learn by search it on the Internet. Teach them how to send mails. Show them the technological advancements happening around. When you let your child work on their own, make sure to activate parental controls on devices they use and the content they are working with.
    • Set rules about using social media: First of all, creating an account on social media requires following age restrictions specified by the application. Social media are the tools for interactions among people and a great way to create, share, and/or exchange information and ideas. But they may not always have a positive impact. If your child met the people with unsocial behaviors s/he may become the victim of cyberbullying. Parents must safeguard their child form the unsocial behavior that can happen in social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Talk with your kids about smart social media habits and the best ways to use them. Teach them what to post or share and what to not. Help them identify trusted people or peers, to talk and interact with. You can also set social media limits, and use privacy features and content filters. 

    The Internet is full of opportunities, so during the lockdown, enhance the knowledge and skills of your child by providing them the effective tools. Make them active with recreational activities. Spend time with them – digitally as well as physically. Keep them far from negativity. 

    @coolsky_

  • Staying Safe on Cyberspace During the Lockdown

    Staying Safe on Cyberspace During the Lockdown

    The Internet was already a part of our life and the lockdown period due to the COVID-19 pandemic promoted it to our basic needs. It has revolutionized the way of communication, learning, entertainment, gaming, commerce, and many more. Whatever comes to your mind, you first search it on the Internet. You used to refresh Cricinfo and Livescore for the updates of your favorite team but now refresh Worldometers for the updates of unfavorite coronavirus.  You used to be seen in front of the tea shop playing Ludo and Carrom board but these days, you are online doing the same. You also may be cooking something new following the food recipes online, despite ending with Pakauda like Momos and brown Rasbari; in any way, you are making your friends jealous. You may also have done the virtual tour of ancient Rome and Newyork’s MoMA or watched birds on eBird or colored the canvas with Bob Ross or may have shown your creativity in the garden or cleaned your house or prepared the itinerary for travel after the lockdown.

    Netflix and Zoom are new fashion; the Professor got a new definition, Tokyo is no more just a city. Your activities and emotions are widening; you are staying in a small perimeter but your heart is feeling the world; You cry at the miracle happened in the Turkish jail; you laugh with Friends; you screamed over the course of roller-coaster seasons of Breaking Bad, or you travel to the fantasy world of GOT. Online teaching is becoming the norm and teachers may be inviting you to Zoom. The Internet has really changed your style of spending lockdown time. Despite that fancy time passes, you become speechless with the frontline people working to control the pandemic and feel lucky for being able to stay at home doing whatever indoor things you want. 

    These unprecedented dependencies on the cyber world have created limitless vulnerabilities and most of the users are not much concerned about it.

    A few days back, a link mentioning free ‘Netflix Account’ spread over the Facebook messenger, you may have clicked on that link too, went a few levels deep, yet got nothing; not only general people, some IT guys also did the same. What this example suggests is that with growth in the Internet traffic and people spending most of their time on the Internet has made cyberspace more vulnerable. Criminals are finding new creative ideas to get people in their trap and created a major problem for individuals, businesses, and other entities. Many people are becoming victims of hacking, identity theft, malicious software, hate crimes, telemarketing & Internet fraud, phishing, sniffing, harassing in social media, bombarding the emails, fake profile & updates, etc. That free Netflix was also a criminal’s trick to break into phones and steal sensitive data, also called phishing; the phishers stay active and attack the users with various money-making schemes and such activities skyrocketed during the lockdown. If Netflix is providing free service, why didn’t they announce it through their own official channels? The users are trapped in the criminal’s fake offers knowingly and mostly unknowingly. Cases of vishing are also being heard, which is phishing through voice calls. Criminals are even trying an approach of social engineering and making direct contact with intended victim(s) using emails, social sites, or Viber or phones. They try to convince, gain confidence, and retrieve the information they need.  The speed, convenience, and anonymity of the Internet are being misused.

    Not just phishing, our social media apps are full of fake news and hate speech spread about coronavirus. Rumors are being spread about various medicines for treating coronavirus or sending messages which may hurt communal sentiments. The lockdown situation increased the number of people working from home creating more opportunities for criminals to spread malware, including spyware and ransomware. As the home user may be logging into the corporate network of their office via their unsecured home network, the vulnerability has increased. Spyware is unwanted software that gains access to your computing device, stealing your internet usage data and sensitive information and ransomware is a form of malware that encrypts a victim’s files and only releases them after money is paid to it through some online channels.

    Similarly, Fake baits scammers are creating ways to trap users. They pretend to be WHO or any other health agencies and ask for donations, mostly through emails, they transfer the users to the fake site with authentic-looking contents but if anyone initiates donations entering their financial credentials those data will reach the criminals. I read the news a few days back, an email pretending to be from Vietnam asked for donations for WHO in a bitcoin wallet. But actually WHO does not use a bitcoin wallet. Internet users need to be very much careful of such scams and never enter sensitive data.

    We have recently seen the data breaches of Foodmandu and Vianet in Nepal too, where data of thousands of customers got exposed. Hackers are attempting to hack WHO and it’s partner’s computer systems. Those criminals may be looking for sensitive information about coronavirus and trying to encrypt and hold it for ransom, or they may just want to disrupt the system. About a month back a hospital in the Czech Republic suffered a cyber-attack, which disrupted their functioning and even caused postponements of scheduled surgeries, which had a direct impact on human life. Likewise, a hacker published the personal data of former patients from the UK’s one of the Medicine research centers. A hospital in France was also the target of a failed attack. A similar incident happened in Spain as well, and health workers were informed to avoid opening suspicious emails. Knowing about scams, malware and more, you may now be feeling like the Internet as a dangerous place, but don’t worry; simple security measures can heavily reduce the exposure to such threats.

    • Malicious cyber attackers are using people’s high appetite for COVID-19 related information as an opportunity to deliver malware. You must remain vigilant and don’t trust anything you see on the Internet. Ignore spam emails, “Free” offers, clickbait, online quizzes, surveys, unless you received it from the known sources.
    • If you are using the same password for all your online accounts, it’s time to keep them different and strong – use a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols – and keep this secret to yourself.
    • Use the privacy settings of social media. Do not click and share anything you see and don’t believe everyone you meet on social media. Keep your personal information professional and limited; properly manage what to show and what to hide.
    • The Internet is an excellent source of information but not always. Before trusting the news, verify the trustworthiness of the source. Fact check whether the stories and photos are real; text search & reverse image search helps most of the time. Do not share the news stories and photos as you see them. Follow WHO or your government’s source for COVID-19 information.
    • Once you post on the Internet it remains forever in various forms even if you delete the original post. Any comment or image you post online may stay forever. There is no way for you to “take back” a remark you wish you hadn’t made, so think twice before posting.
    • Don’t befriend whoever you meet in the virtual space. People you meet online are not always who they claim to be.
    • The lockdown period has seen the increment in online transactions. Before performing the transaction, be sure you are accessing the bank’s genuine website. Always type the bank’s address instead of clicking on a link in an email. Look at your address bar and ensure the website’s address starts with “https”. The ‘s’, which may also be denoted with a padlock in most browsers, indicates a secure connection.  Sign out from your bank account as soon as you’re finished. The bank will never ask for your financial credentials so if you got the message asking such, never respond. Don’t give access to your mobile to anyone as most of the banking transactions these days send OTP as an SMS that is required for the transaction to complete.
    • Never believe in emails that threaten to close or suspend the account if immediate actions are not taken and they want the user to provide their personal details. Banks never send such messages.
    • Do not perform sensitive financial transactions using open Public Wi-Fi. Cybercriminals may intercept information being sent between your device and a website.
    • Download computer and mobile apps from official app stores only. Read the reviews and ratings. Don’t download apps that look suspicious or come from a site you don’t trust. Malware these days are seen in the form of the COVID-19 information app which is actually not.
    • Mobile, as well as computer operating systems, provide timely updates to resolve newly evolved security vulnerabilities and threats – Update the OS.
    • Protect your computer with genuine antivirus and anti-spyware software, and set these to automatically update. Do a little research while choosing one.
    • Enable the firewall on your OS that will block unauthorized access while permitting outward communication.

    Self-awareness of the citizens is the most effective way of decreasing crimes in cyberspace. Stay updated with the security threats being evolved, do not fear, respect the threats and apply the proper security measures. The law enforcement agency of the country should also alert the citizens about threats and respond promptly in the case of any occurrence.  

    Stay safe and enjoy the lockdown responsively.

    SAROJ PANDEY / @coolsky_

  • Famous Women in Computing History

    Famous Women in Computing History

    Like various other fields, the field of computing is also inspired by the contribution of women. Their contributions have significantly helped in shaping the unavoidable trends in Information Technology (IT) industry. The history takes us back to the 18th century when Ada Lovelace designed the first algorithm to be executed by a computer, she is one of the pioneers of the field. Similarly, Grace Hopper was the first person to design a compiler for a programming language.

    The list of women contributors may never end but I have tried to list a few of the most famous women.

    Ada Lovelace

    Ada Lovelace is said to be the prophet of the computer age, one of the most famous women in computer science history. The Countess of Lovelace is best known for her work on the Analytical Engine, a mechanical general-purpose computer designed by Charles Babbage. She is recognized as the first computer programmer for her notes on the machine. She was the first to recognize that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine. As a result, she is sometimes regarded as the first computer programmer.

    You may have read the poems by Lord Byron, Ada Loveless is his daughter.

    Grace Hopper

    One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of computer programming who invented one of the first compiler related tools. Her team developed the first computer language compiler, A-0, as well as Flow-Matic, the first programming language to use English-like commands. She also worked on the UNIVAC I computer and popularized the idea of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL, an early high-level programming language. She always dreamed of a programming language written in English, which almost all programming languages are following.

    ENIAC Team

    The day before it debuted, ENIAC, the world’s first general-purpose computer failed to work. It was up to six women to make that 30 tons beast operational and they did it. They were – Jean Jennings, Marlyn Wescoff, Ruth Lichterman, Betty Snyder, Frances Bilas, and Kay McNulty. You can get the insights into how these women figured out and successfully programmed the machine by watching the documentary “Eniac Programmers Project”.

    Many of the women of ENIAC went on to help in the development of UNIVAC, the world’s first commercial computer. The UNIVAC I was intended for business use that was bought by the U.S. Census Bureau.

    Mary Kenneth Keller

    Keller is the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in Computer Science. Keller played a significant role in developing a key computer language: Beginner’s All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, or BASIC. With that development, writing custom software was no longer restricted to mathematicians and scientists. Her contribution made computer use much more accessible to a broader portion of the population.

    Katherine Johnson

    Katherine Johnson helped confirm the accuracy of electronic computers used by NASA and performed critical calculations that ensured safe space travel from the 1950s on. She coauthored a research report that used equations for orbital spaceflight in 1960, performed trajectory analysis for the first human space flight in 1961, and ran equations on a desktop mechanical calculating machine before the 1962 orbital mission of John Glenn. Johnson also worked on calculations for Project Apollo’s Lunar Lander, the Space Shuttle, and the Earth Resources Satellite.

    Margaret Hamilton

    Margaret Hamilton, an American computer scientist and systems engineer who led the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory. Hamilton worked on software development for Apollo 11, the first spacecraft to complete a successful mission that placed humans on the moon in 1969. Hamilton’s insistence on thorough testing is credited with the mission’s success and safety of its astronauts.

    Radia Joy Perlman 

    An American computer programmer and network engineer, Perlman is most famous for her invention of the spanning-tree protocol (STP), which is fundamental to the operation of network bridges. She also made large contributions to many other areas of network design and standardization, such as link-state routing protocols.

    She is also known as the “mother of the Internet.”

    Susan Kare

    Apple’s first icon designer was artist and graphic designer Susan Kare. A member of Apple’s original Macintosh team, she designed some of the most recognizable icons that we still use today. Susan Kare’s icons and fonts for the original Macintosh were revolutionary. They gave a lifeless computer a warmth and personality that lives on in the modern Mac to this day. Among many icons, the Happy Mac, the old Dogcow icon, and the Command symbol that you can now see on any Mac keyboard are the most popular ones.

    Kare also designed for Microsoft, IBM, Facebook etc.Her projects for Microsoft included the card deck for solitaire game as well as numerous icons for Windows 3.0. For IBM, she produced icons and design elements for OS/2. She also designed icons for the “Gifts” feature of Facebook.

    Marissa Mayer

    Marissa was one of the first people that Google hired. She spent 13 years at that company, serving as an engineer, a spokesperson, and more. In 2012, she began leading Yahoo. When the sale of Yahoo to Verizon was completed, Mayer resigned as CEO of Yahoo. Then after, Mayer cofounded Lumi Labs, an incubator that is focused on consumer media and artificial intelligence.

    This is just a small list. If your career interest is towards computer science, this may inspire you.

    Add in comments if your inspiration is someone else … 🙂 

    (Text and Images were obtained from various sources.)


  • Smart Waling – Success Story… #SmartCity #StepForward

    Smart Waling – Success Story… #SmartCity #StepForward

  • Smart City: Whim or Reality?

    Smart City: Whim or Reality?

    Since the local level election in Nepal, there is a word buzzing around. Knowingly or just as a whim, everybody is saying it. It became an essential topic of election manifesto as well. Is it just a fancy thing to talk or has some significance in upgrading the quality of life of the citizens? Till now that word may come to your mind too. Yes, we are talking about ‘Smart City’, which has the power to change the life of millions Nepalese. Did your political leader said to make your city a smart one? If you believe them, welcome to the future!

    With the advancement of the technologies, Nepalese lifestyle has also been changed. The Internet has become one of the basic needs. Smart devices are no longer just the things to show off; they are essential things to perform daily activities. Smartphones are not just the device to make or receive calls; they contain the whole universe. Smartwatches in your wrist provide easy notifications; you are not going to miss your friend’s birthday or a game of your favorite team. Smart lighting in your home works as you need, switch are replaced by sensors. Okay, I believe your personal life is smart but does the street light in your city turns itself on when you walk by? You are going to a movie this afternoon; can you check whether parking lots are available in the theatre or nearby? Can your vehicle find out the nearby fuel station when the fuel level is below the line? Does the traffic light stop the vehicle in the zebra crossing when you are about to cross the road? The water pipe is broken in a location a bit far from the water supply office; can they detect it before any complaint? Waste containers placed in the street near your house is full, do the municipality know it? Does the management company know roadside gardens need water? Can you see the noise and air pollution level of the city from your smart devices? Will you receive a message when your area is about to get flooded? Can the drivers instantly pay highway tolls while exiting from Thankot? Can your electricity company read your usage meter from their office? I know all of your answers; it’s simply ‘No’. But a citizen of a smart city will say ‘Yes’ all those questions and it’s not the science fiction movie. Some of the well-known smart cities across the globe are Barcelona, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Dubai, Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Nice, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Miami, Denver, Boston, Seoul, Sydney, Osaka, Perth etc. Numerous other cities have initiated smart-city pilot projects, and other more cities have signed smart-city construction agreements with IT companies and financial partners.

    As a place equipped with better roads, vehicles, traffic lights, electricity, and waste containers etc. is designated as a city, integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) makes it a ‘Smart city’; it’s simply the promotion. With the help of smart technologies, the quality of life of the citizens gets to the higher level and that’s what smart city aims. A ‘smart city’ is made by ‘smart citizens’ and citizens have almost all the information from the city’s system, which is used to make choices about their lifestyle, work, and travel options. If we consider the view of United Nations Economic and Social Council, there is no standardized and commonly accepted definition of a smart city; it varies from people to people and country to country, this is due to wide variety of technologies, cities, and countries can integrate the technology they want and afford. No matter how that is defined by various people, combining a current system of the city with ICT and fulfilling the demand of the citizens enhancing the accessibility, working environment, service quality and performance is the core of developing the smart city. To uplift the citizen’s life, numerous areas such as business, environment, people & lifestyle, safety & security, water supply, energy efficiency, e-Governance & citizen participation, a communication mechanism, health and education, and transportation network etc. need to be excelled by the use of ICT infrastructure.

    An American tech company IBM defines a smart city as “one that makes optimal use of all the interconnected information available today to better understand and control its operations and optimize the use of limited resources”. Similarly, another tech giant Cisco defines smart cities as those who adopt “scalable solutions that take advantage of information and communications technology to increase efficiencies, reduce costs, and enhance the quality of life”.

    Let’s leave the sci-fi things and focus on how all those things are done. Implementation of a smart city is the prominent demonstration of the internet of things (IoT). IoT is the concept that makes every device capable of generating the data and communicating with other station. It uses high-end sensors, which are generally added to physical devices. For instance, visualize the lights in the street that automatically turns on or off sensing motion and the available light. It turns itself on when it gets dark, off when there is no movement in the street and turns on instantly when pedestrians approach. So much energy efficient, right? Similarly, if the sensor is in integrated into the waste container it will send the data to its base when the container is full. The team will come to the container’s location and take the waste to a landfill site; it maintains a clean environment in the city. Likewise, sensors integrated into the parking can determine its status and trigger the message to the enquiring drivers, more intelligently; it may also recommend other parking that has available space nearby. Buildings equipped with sensors can detect wear and tear and notify the owner regarding repairs. Powerful ICT infrastructure, broadband Internet, wirelessly managed streetlights, intelligent waste containers, smart traffic lights, efficient public transport, robust ICT infrastructure, electronic service delivery, smart power grid, smart electricity and water meters, monitoring of water and air quality, implementing an early warning system before floods, landslides or other disaster, use of renewable source of energy,  smart roads, electric and autonomous vehicles, high speed electric train, electronic payment solutions, smooth security and surveillance, smart health monitoring equipment, etc. are some models a smart city assimilates to increases the quality of the city and its citizens as well as saves huge amount of money over some period. Wow, isn’t this so cool?

    The government of Nepal said to build smart cities in the Kathmandu Valley and some other parts of the country. But for the nation where basic infrastructures are still lacking, it could be a far-sighted dream. Preparing the guidelines and getting the fund to build ICT infrastructure is a major challenge. Building the smart city needs huge investment so affordability will be the key to a country like Nepal whose per capita income is less than $2500. A smart city is a completely new aspect of ICT development for us. Thus, we must first keep attention that only integrating high-end sensors and building powerful infrastructure does not make a system smart. Utilizing its potential in a sustainable manner is a big concern. The global analysis from the smart city practitioners and experts need to be kept in consideration. We may also need advisor team which provides training to the local body regarding various approaches to implementation. As our most of the existing cities are popular for their long history, rich culture and diverse communities they must be kept soulful that means smart cities should be built upon the strong historical foundation. Finding the innovative ways of integrating technology and using data generated by them is another big issue.

    Currently, Government of Nepal, Ministry of Urban Development has set various dimensions for smart cities such as smart people, smart governance, smart mobility, smart economy, smart living, and smart environment and those dimensions encompasses various indicators. Smart people comprises inclusion, education, creativity etc. Likewise, smart governance contains online service availability, ICT infrastructure, transparent government & open data. The smart mobility indicator includes efficient and eco-friendly public transportation, demand-based pricing for highway toll & parking, real-time traffic management, GPS tracking system & remote monitoring system. Equally, the smart economy is another important indicator that emprises entrepreneurship, innovation, productivity and local & global connection. Smart living consist of health, safety, culture, and wellbeing. Similarly, smart environment consists of smart buildings, smart grid for communication, automated control systems for addressing system outages, managed renewable energy sources, recycled solid waste, smart electricity & water meter, sustainable urban planning along with disaster resilience plan, real-time information on city routes & maps.

    The ultimate aim of a smart city is to offer improved services to the residents and that is gained through instrumented, interconnected and intelligent components. For the developing nations like Nepal, investing in ICT infrastructure can be a great challenge. But this challenge can be mitigated by performing the actions step by step. Completely transforming the existing system is not an overnight process. Following the incremental model starting with small and low budget ICT projects and combining them seems the finest option but standardization and interoperability of developed subsystems should be well managed. Currently, the South Korean government has pledged technical and economic support for transforming some cities to smart one, they promised to help on building the strategic framework but we can’t always depend upon the donors. As the process of smartening the city is not the one way practice from the government body, the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model appears to be the best way for starting the ICT projects in which the effort of government bodies, research institutions, IT service providers, and international donors can be combined for a common goal. Another implementation challenge in Nepal is the gap among citizens in terms of access to ICT also referred as the digital divide, typically seen between the people in cities and rural areas. Thus, government and private sectors must act promptly to improve the IT literacy because citizen’s active involvement can only fasten the development and implementation process as well as it makes them realize the value and they easily adopt the change.

    At last, we can’t ignore the bitter truth that the incompetence and inadequate effort of the political leaders and government authorities’ is the major reason behind the poor execution of the plan and the same thing may happen in case of the smart city too. The possibilities of the smart city are almost endless but we always need to consider that the rush may exacerbate the existing system and it may lead towards the creepy city. With positive effort from the government, the citizens and external support entities the dream of the smart city is not so far.

  • NIC Asia cyber heist: Bank’s weakness helped criminals to hack into its system #News

    A cyber attack on NIC Asia Bank was imminent as the banking institution had allowed Information Technology (IT) Department staff to use computers deployed for SWIFT transaction to perform tasks like checking personal e-mails.

    A cyber attack on NIC Asia Bank, which reportedly lost millions of rupees last week in the biggest-ever cyber heist in Nepal, was imminent, as the banking institution had allowed staff of the Information Technology (IT) Department to use computers deployed for SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) transaction to perform tasks like checking personal e-mails, the Post has learned.This lapse left the bank’s computers vulnerable to cyber attacks, “enabling malware”, or computer viruses, “to enter and corrupt the server”, according to sources who attended a meeting of IT heads of commercial banks called by the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the banking sector regulator, on Monday. The bank, sources informed, had also given its staff remote access to the server on which SWIFT system was installed, which was another Achilles’ heel of the institution.

    These vulnerabilities were exploited by unidentified hackers, who reportedly stole millions of rupees from the bank on Thursday, a public holiday when the country was celebrating Laxmi Puja. The money was stolen by “issuing around 31 fake instructions” via SWIFT, the global interbank payment system.

    It is not exactly known how much money is missing from the bank’s coffers, as hackers “crashed” the server on which SWIFT software was installed, leaving the financial institution with no information of the heist. However, various sources the Post talked to put the stolen amount at around Rs 460 million.

    Debates are now surfacing on whether the damage could have been contained had the bank filled its vacant positions of head and deputy head of the IT Department. The IT Department of the commercial bank, which has assets of over Rs101 billion, is currently being run by junior staff, as senior officials have left the company. These junior staffs do not have much clue about how hackers broke into the SWIFT system, sources said. It is now being said it was SWIFT, and not the bank’s IT staff, that tipped the management about the cyber attack after unusual transactions were detected at odd hours.

    SWIFT is an interface that banks and financial institutions use to send instructions for fund transfers across the globe. Today, almost every banking institution in the world has its own unique SWIFT code based on which funds are moved to another institution. It is said over 90 percent of fund transfers in the world takes place through SWIFT.

    [News copied from https://goo.gl/SbRLxT]