It’s a basic computer course that has caught the fancy of Pune’s net-savvy middle class.
Shocked with horror stories of password theft, online defamation and financial frauds, businessmen, students and housewives are signing up for part-time courses in cyber investigations.
A three-hour class every week for six months teaches a student how to crack passwords, recover data wiped out from a computer and trace an e-mail right to the computer where it originated.
Rohas Nagpal, director of Asian School of Cyber Law, said in the last two years there has been a rise in the number of people signing up for a short course to ward off online mishaps in their personal lives.
“Nearly 20 per cent of our students take up the course to increase their knowledge about cyber crimes. Most of them are parents who want to protect their children and youngsters who want to be protected against password thefts and online blackmail,” he said.
Real estate developer, Nihar Adkar took a six-month course in cyber investigation to protect himself and his family against growing cyber crime. The knowledge, he says, has given him a greater sense of safety and control over his online transactions.
Three weeks ago, Adkar received an e-mail supposedly from ICICI Bank. “With some knowledge of cyber crime I was able to check the mail in detail. It was a phishing attack. The mail had not come from the bank.”
People who fall to prey to such phishing attacks are vulnerable to net banking frauds. He is now planning to start an online discussion group to create awareness about cyber crimes.
Gaurav Jhchak (26) signed up for a course on cyber security. “I was curious about crimes on the internet and wanted to learn the methods to fight cyber crime,” he says. Nagpal said none of his non-professional students have been involved in cyber crime.
t_mayank@dnaindia.net
