Cyber safety and security

1. What is cyber safety? Why is it important?

Answer:
Cyber Safety refers to the safe and responsible use of Internet so as to ensure safety and
security of personal information and not posing threat to anyone else's information.
It is important because it involves gaining knowledge about possible threats to personal safety
and security risks for the information along with measures to prevent and counter them.

2. What should you do to protect your identity on Internet ?

Answer:
We can protect our identity on the Internet by using the following solutions:
 Anonymous Browsing — Anonymous browsers allow users to view websites without
revealing any personal information of the user like their IP address, machine type, location
etc.
 Private browsing — We can use the following to safely browse internet:

 Incognito browsing — It opens up a version of the browser that will not track our activity.
 Proxy — It works by acting as a middleman between our computer and the website we
want to access.
 Virtual Private Network — It is a method used to protect our system from hackers trying
to access our sensitive information.

3. How do websites track you online ?

Answer:
Various types of information used by websites to track us online are as follows:
 IP Address — From our IP address, a website can determine our rough geographical
location.
 Cookies and Tracking Scripts — They can identify and track our browsing activity across a
website.
 HTTP Referrer — When a link to an outside website on a webpage is clicked, then the linked
website will get opened and internally our information will be provided to the linked website.
 Super Cookies — Super Cookies are persistent cookies that come back even after we delete
them.
 User Agent — It tells websites our browser and operating system, providing another piece of
data that can be stored and used to target ads.

4. What are cookies? How are they used by websites to track you?

Answer:
Cookies are small text files on our computer storing small pieces of information related to our
online habits.
Cookies are of two types:
 First party cookies — These store our own login id, passwords, auto fill information etc. for
some websites that we frequently visit. They can identify us and track our browsing activity
across a website.
 Third party cookies — The websites store these cookies to know about our search history
and web browsing history so as to place advertisements as per our interests. Third party
cookies may result in many unwanted advertisements on our webpages.

5. What is private browsing? Why is it considered a better way of browsing the Internet?

Answer:
A type of browsing wherein browser opens in incognito mode or through proxy or VPN, and does
not store cookies about our online activity, is called Private browsing.
It is considered a better way of browsing the Internet as it allows the user to use the Internet
without revealing his/her search history and sharing data.

6.What is confidentiality of information? How do we use it?

Answer:
Internet is a public platform, where most of your activity is public. But there must be some
information like your credit history or bank details, your mails, etc, which you do not want to
make public, i.e , you want to keep his information confidential.

Similarly on your computer system or in a private network, you would certainly want that crucial
information is protected and is not publicly visible. Confidentiality of information ensures that
only authorized users get access to sensitive and protected data.

Best practices used to ensure confidentiality are as follows:

1. Use firewall wherever possible.

2. Control browser settings to block tracking.
3. Browse privately wherever possible.
4. Be careful while posting on Internet.
5. Ensure Safe sites while entering crucial information.
6. Carefully handle emails.
7. Do not give sensitive information on wireless networks.
8. Avoid using public computers.

7. What is cybercrime? How can you report it?

Answer:

Any criminal offence that is facilitated by, or involves the use of, electronic communications or
information systems, including any electronic device, computer, or the Internet is referred to as
Cybercrime.
A cybercrime can be reported in the following ways:
 The local police stations can be approached for filing complaints with the cyber crime cells
specially designated with the jurisdiction to register complaint.
 Provisions have now been made for filing of 'E-FIR' in most of the states.
 The Ministry of Home Affairs is also launching a website for registering crimes against
women and children online including cybercrimes.
8. Can you give an example of crime which is not cybercrime?
Answer:
A person breaks into a house and steals jewellery and cash. This crime involves the unlawful
taking of someone else's property and is not classified as a cybercrime.

9. What is cyber bullying and cyber stalking?

Answer:
Cyber bullying:
Cyber bullying refers to act of online harassment of someone by using online tools such as
Internet, email, instant messages, chat rooms or social networking sites etc. Cyber trolling,
which means posting of sarcastic-, demeaning- or insulting- comments about someone, is also
considered form of cyber bullying.

Cyber stalking:
Cyber Stalking refers to online stalking where someone uses Internet, chat rooms, social
networking sites, emails etc. to stalk his/her victim. Cyber stalker follows the victim online
everywhere and keeps posting/sending something which are unsolicited.

10. What is identity fraud?

Answer:
Identity fraud is the use by one person of another person's personal information, without
authorization, to commit a crime or to deceive or defraud that other person or a third person. A
person's personal information may be surreptitiously obtained, commonly described as identity
theft, in a variety of ways.

11. What is digital footprint. Why is it important?

Answer:
Digital footprint are the records and traces of individuals activities as they use the internet.
digital footprint footprints are permanently stored. Your interaction on social media, your friend
circle on social media sites, sites you visit, online purchases, locations visited through
Facebook check-ins, etc, all make up your digital footprints

It is important to think carefully of digital footprint because:

 It gives us a digital persona by defining our online behavior.
 The digital footprint is often used by universities before approving admissions to a student.
 The digital footprint is also used by future employers, and law enforcement offices, to find
people with positive and clean digital footprint.
 The digital footprint should not provide personal information as it could be misinterpreted or
misused for theft or identity.

12. Why are privacy settings of a social networking site so important?

Answer:
Privacy settings of a social networking site is so important because you should know :-

• Who all can see what you have posted.

• Who all can send requests to you.
• What all information about you is visible to others, even to your contacts etc.
13. what are the usage rules for effective use of social networking sites?
Answer:
 Be authentic
 Be secure
 Be reliable
 Don’t pick fights online
 Don’t use fake names or pseudonyms
 Protect your identity
 Does your information/post pass the publicity test?
 Respect your audience
 Respect other’s sentiments
 Monitor comments

14. What is online fraud? Give some examples.

Answer
Fraud committed using the Internet is called Online fraud. Online fraud may occur in many
forms such as:
 Non-delivered goods
 Non-existent companies
 Stealing information
 Fraudulent payments

Some examples of online fraud are:

 Credit card fraud where credit card details are stolen from a user's online activities and the
money is used without the user's knowledge.
 Using someone's credentials to watch an online show or movie.
 Non-delivery of goods after payment is another example. On investigation, a user may find
that the company or website was fraud.

15. What is credit card fraud?

Answer:
In credit card frauds, the credit card details of a user such as his credit card number, name,
CVV, transaction pin, etc., are stolen from his/her online activities and then some payment
frauds are carried out with this stolen information.

16. What is identity theft?

Answer:
Online identity theft refers to an act of stealing someone's personal information such as name,
login details etc. and then posing as that person online. Malicious activities like fraudulent
posts, rumour mongering, riots fueling, fraudulent financial transactions, etc. can be carried out
through identity theft

17. What measures can you take to curb online frauds?

Answer:
The measures that can be taken to curb online frauds are as follows:
 A monitoring official body that ensures the authenticity of e-commerce company and
delivery of goods/services as promised.
 Strong security mechanism by the e-commerce site and payment gateways to prevent
stealing of crucial information.
 Official guidelines and safeguards on the selling of users' data to third parties.
 18. Define these terms:
i. Phishing
ii. Scam
iii. Computer forensics
iv. Identity theft

Answer:

i. Phishing: phishing is the practice of attempting to acquire sensitive information from

individuals over the internet, by means of deception
ii. Scam: any fraudulent business practice that extracts money from an unsuspecting,
ignorant person is called scam.
iii. Computer forensics: digital forensics or computer forensics refers to methods used for
interpretation of computer media for digital evidence.
iv. Identity theft: identity theft is a type of fraud that involves using someone else’s identity to
steal money or gain other benefits. Online identity theft refers to an act of stealing
someone’s personal information such as name, login details, etc. and then posing as that
person online.

19. what protection measures would you take against identity theft?

Answer:
Some common measures that one can take to protect one’s identity are:

 Never open suspicious texts or emails. Always delete them

 Never send money or give credit card, online account details or copies of personal
documents to anyone you don’t know or trust.
 Choose passwords that would be difficult for others to guess and update them regularly.
Don’t use the same password for every account, and don’t share them with anyone.
 Secure your networks and devices with anti-virus software and good firewall.
 Avoid using public computers or Wi Fi hotspots to access or provide personal information
 Be very careful about how much personal information you share on social network sites.

20. what is computer forensics? What important practices are followed in computer
forensics?

Answer:

Digital forensics or computer forensics refers to methods used for interpretation of computer
media for digital evidence. Computer forensics provide our legal system with a way to recover
data from electronic or digital devices.
Computer forensics combines the elements of law and computer science so as to collect the
digital evidences while ensuring that the collection process has retained data integrity, which
means having proof that this digital evidence is not planted or the data has not been altered
during investigation

That is , computer forensics follows the following practices:

 Acquire the evidence without altering or damaging the original

 Authenticate that your recovered evidence is the same as the originally seized data.
 Analyze the data without modifying it.