A simple case of breach of faith can ruin one’s finances, reputation and put an entire career in jeopardy. A report by the Economic Offences Wing states that in most cases of cyber fraud, passwords are shared in good faith and when the relationship turns sour, they are used to settle scores and take revenge.
Take for instance, the investigation report filed by authorities recently in the JNU MMS case, which states that the accused, who were involved in spreading the video were actually friends of the girl involved. With a sharp spike in the number of cyber crime occurrences, experts warn against sharing passwords, saying it can go a long way in protecting crucial data from going into the wrong hands.
Gautamendra Mishra, an IT expert with an MNC, avers, “Sharing passwords and PINs can be disastrous. Even while transacting on Net banking sites one can never be too careful. Especially, when working on an unsecure network connection, as any hacker can tap WiFi and extract crucial data.”
Sharing a case, Prateek Raheja, a medical student, says, “My friend’s ex-girlfriend had his email and Facebook passwords, as she checked his email whenever he had no Internet access. After an ugly break-up, she changed passwords to all his accounts and sent weird messages to his contacts.” Prateek adds that his friend is thankful that he didn’t share his e-banking password, else it would have gotten really ugly.
Suggesting a few precautions against cyber criminals, Sunny Vaghela, ethical hacker and cyber crime consultant, quips, “One should avoid using unsecured public WiFi connections that have a router configured with no password. One should also avoid using WiFi networks encrypted through Wireless Equivalent Privacy (WEP) as this standard has already been cracked by hackers. And those using Internet banking or shopping online must always use the virtual keyboard, while logging onto bank accounts.”