Centre for Internet and Society

Minutes of Meeting on National Policy on Universal Electronic Accessibility (July 1, 2014)

praskrishna — 2014-07-28T06:45:31Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/minutes-of-first-meeting-national-policy-on-universal-electronic-accessibility.pdf

Minutes of meeting of SInC's dt. 30.04.2013.pdf

praskrishna — 2016-05-19T02:35:24Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/Minutes%20of%20meeting%20of%20SInCs%20dt.%2030.04.2013.pdf

Minutes of meeting of SInC's dt. 21st Aug 2012 (1) (1).pdf

praskrishna — 2016-05-19T01:39:07Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/Minutes%20of%20meeting%20of%20SInCs%20dt.%2021st%20Aug%202012%20-1-%20-1.pdf

Minutes of Meeting of SInC's

praskrishna — 2016-05-01T08:37:23Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/Minutes%20of%20meeting%20of%20SInCs%20dt.%2021st%20Aug%202012.pdf

Mint

praskrishna — 2019-11-28T14:13:01Z

Mint

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Mint.jpg

Ministry of Science makes open access to research mandatory

praskrishna — 2014-07-28T09:12:49Z

Researchers who fail to meet the requirements would not considered for promotions, fellowships, future grants or appointments.

The article by Aprajita Singh was published in Down to Earth magazine on July 16, 2014. T. Vishnu Vardhan gave his inputs.

The Centre has made it mandatory for the researchers who receive funds from the Centre to submit a copy of their final research papers to open access journals or online open access repositories.

Stating this, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), both under the Ministry of Science, recently released a draft of their Open Access policy. The departments have also invited comments and suggestions on the same. The document is open for comments till July 25th.

In the draft, DBT and DST have stated that since this research is funded by the public, it is necessary that the knowledge be made accessible to the public as soon as possible, so that it can be read and built upon. This will promote research culture in India.

In the past, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) have also released similar open access policies that encourage authors to make their work easily available to the public.

Traditional journals such as Nature impose a heavy subscription fee for access to their articles, thus limiting the viewers that these papers can reach. In some cases, authors may also be required to sign over their copyright of the paper to the publisher. Scientists consider it to be a matter of prestige to publish their research in these journals as it is believed that the quality of papers published here is superior to that of papers in open access journals.

But the trend slowly changing. According to T Vishnu Vardhan of Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society, “For open access journals like PLoS ONE, a scientist or an author has to pay less than one-third of the cost of publishing that he would pay to traditional models. The publishers have for long been holding forth on the editorial quality that their commercial operations assure, which no more holds ground as the open access journals have historically demonstrated same level of efficiency.” He adds that this is primarily because most of the peer reviewing of scientific scholarly publication is done for free.

The policy proposes that a copy of the paper be submitted to the repository within a week of being accepted by a journal. If the journal imposes an embargo, the paper will remain in the repository, but be made open access only once the embargo ends. Journals can thus charge a subscription fee for the duration of the embargo period. However, the policy asks the authors to suggest that the embargo period be no longer than year.

The departments maintain that while they do expect the authors to publish their work in quality, peer-reviewed journals, the research work done by them should be judged on the basis of the merit of the work and not the journal it is published in.

It also states that authors must submit the deposit ID of the work in question along with the final work, and also while applying for any future funding, or their proposals will not be considered. For authors of research conducted in institutions that come under the control of DBT/DST which do not carry the deposit ID, the penalty proposed is severe. These authors will not be eligible for promotions, fellowships, future grants or appointments.

The policy also provides a copyright addendum which states that the author retains all rights to reproduce and distribute the article, as long as it is not done for monetary purposes.

It is hoped that this policy will encourage other departments to make open access research mandatory too. Senior scientist at ICAR Research Centre for Eastern Region and a member of Open Access India, Sridhar Gutam says that there is a lack of clarity amongst researchers in India over open access policies. He hopes that now that CSIR, ICAR, DBT and DST have rolled out open access policies, this will encourage discussion on the issue and once this policy is finalized, other departments and institutes of higher education and research will follow suit and introduce their own policies.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/down-to-earth-july-16-2014-aparajita-singh-ministry-of-science-makes-open-access-to-research-mandatory

Minimising Legal Risks of Online Intermediaries while Protecting User Rights

praskrishna — 2014-07-29T07:50:51Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in partnership with Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC.in) is organizing a workshop during the APrIGF event to be held at Crown Plaza, Greater Noida on August 5, 2014, 3.30 p.m. to 5.00 p.m. Jyoti Panday will be a panelist.

Thematic Area of Interest

Internet business in the Asia Pacific region

Consumer protection for users of global Internet services

Internet for socio-economic development

Specific Issues of Discussions & Description

Internet usage in the Asia Pacific region has been growing at a phenomenal rate and online service providers have benefited enormously from this growth. However, the region poses challenges for online service providers in terms of legal risks involved with respect to user generated content. Across the world from Europe to the US, it has been an accepted policy that service providers on the Internet cannot be held liable for user-generated content and this principle has found place in legislations enacted in this field in most countries. However, the Asian region has often seen blocking of services and websites due to user-generated content that is deemed to be illegal. There needs to be a debate on safe harbour provisions for intermediaries and the take-down provisions in legislations to ensure that the right to freedom of expression of citizens are protected while maintaining an environment that permits innovation in this space.

The workshop will also consider the different classes of intermediaries, how they differ functionally and if their differing roles should bear an impact on their responsibility with regards to protection of rights of users. Traditional models of consumer protection are based on distinguishing the roles and responsibilities of suppliers, facilitators and consumers. While developing consumer protection models for online intermediary platforms, their evolving roles and responsibilities as a supplier and a facilitator need to be considered. Intermediary platforms have also created and highlighted new consumer relations and issues that call for robust and fluid reddressal mechanisms.

The need to reflect on reddressal mechanisms for consumer issues pertaining to online intermediaries is also necessary, given the economic implications associated with intermediary liability. Failure to protect intermediaries stems innovation and restricts growth of start-ups and small to medium enterprises in the digital economy and has negative financial implications. Moreover, intermediaries are crucial in connecting developing countries to global markets and a failure to protect them, creates a barrier to information exchange and capacity building.

The panel will discuss the following issues:

Take-down procedures and Put-back provisions used in various countries in the region
Safe-harbour provisions for intermediaries
Need for classification of Intermediaries for the purpose of a take-down regime and user rights
Rights of users of services provided by online intermediaries
Recommendations for a balanced intermediary liability regime

Expected Format and Confirmed Panel Members

The workshop will be a ninety minute panel divided in two sessions of forty five minutes each. The proposed panel includes:

Mishi Choudhary (Moderator) SFLC.IN Civil Society India
Mishi Choudhary is the founding director of SFLC India. She started working with SFLC in New York following the completion of her fellowship during which she earned her LLM from Columbia Law School and was a Stone Scholar. In addition to her LLM, she has an LLB and a bachelors degree in political science from the University of Delhi, India.

Jyoti Panday, Center for Internet and Society, Civil Society, India
Jyoti Panday is Programme Officer at the Centre for Internet and Society working on Internet governance and on issues related to the role and responsibility of intermediaries in protecting user rights and freedom of expression. She has experience in strategy, campaign management and research on issues and processes related to the development agenda, sustainability and democracy. She has completed her MSc in Public Policy from Queen Mary, University of London.

Shahzad Ahmed, Bytes for All Pakistan, Civil Society, Pakistan
Shahzad Ahmad is the Country Coordinator of Bytes for All, Pakistan and founder of the Digital Rights Institute (DRI). He is currently working on issues of ICT policy advocacy, internet rights and freedom of expression. He is a development communications expert and is at the forefront of the Internet Rights movement in Pakistan.

Mr. Ahmad is a Diplo Fellow, Executive Board Member of the Association for Progressive Communications, Advisory Board Member of .PK ccTLD and a member of the International Advisory Board of Privacy International, UK. He regularly contributes to various publications and research studies on ICTs for development, freedom of expression and gender related issues. Widely travelled, he regularly participates in various forums at local, regional and global level. Mr. Ahmad maintains a strong engagement with broader civil society networks and strongly believes in participation and openness.

Professor KS Park, Korea University Law School Professor
One of the founders of Open Net Korea, Professor Park has written and is active in internet, free speech, privacy, defamation, copyright, international business contracting, etc. He has given expert testimonies in high-profile free speech cases including the /Minerva /case, the internet real name verification case, the military’s subversive book blacklisting case, the newspaper consumers’ boycott case, and the Park Jung-Geun Retweet case. As a result, the “false news” crime and the internet real name verification laws were struck down as unconstitutional, Park Jung-Geun and Minerva acquitted, the soldiers challenging book blacklisting reinstated, the newspaper boycotters acquitted partially as to the “secondary boycotting” charge (2010-2013).

Since 2006, he serves as the Executive Director of the PSPD Law Center, a non-profit entity that has organized several impact litigations in the areas of free speech, privacy, and copyright. There, the Law Center won the world’s first damage lawsuit against a copyright holder for “bad faith” takedown (2009) and the first damage lawsuit against a portal for warrantless disclosure of the user identity data to the police (2012).

Arvind Gupta, National Head-Information and Technology, Government/ BJP Political party, India
National Head, BJP Information Technology Cell

Faisal Farooqui, CEO, MouthShut.com, Private Sector, India
Faisal Farooqui is a highly recognized entrepreneur who is among the trailblazers of his generation. Faisal has founded and managed two successful Internet and technology companies -MouthShut.com, India's largest consumer review and social media portal and Zarca Interactive, a Virginia based enterprise survey and feedback company.

Ramanjit Singh Chima, Google, Private Sector, India
Raman Jit Singh Chima serves as Policy Counsel and Government Affairs Manager for Google, based in New Delhi. He currently helps lead Google'spublic policy and government affairs work in India. He is a graduate of the Bachelors in Arts and Law (Honours) programme of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. While at the National Law School, he was Chief Editor of the Indian Journal of Law and Technology. He has studied Internet regulation as an independent research fellow with the Sarai programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and contributed to Freedom House's 2009 Freedom on the Internet report.

Apar Gupta, Legal, India
Apar Gupta is a practicing lawyer in Delhi working as a Partner at the law firm of Advani & Co. His practice areas include, commercial litigation and arbitration with a focus on technology and media. Apar as a retained counsel, represents an internet industry organisation in government affairs, including consultations on draft laws and policies which effect the sector. These issues include legal risks of intermediaries, media freedom and consumer rights. He has completed his masters in law from Columbia Law School, New York and has written columns for the Business Standard, Indian Express and the Pioneer on legal issues. Apar also is a visiting faculty at National Law University, Delhi.

Full Name, Affiliation and Contact Details of the Workshop Organizer

The workshop will be jointly organised by SFLC.IN and the Centre for Internet & Society, India. The details of the contact person for the workshop is given below:

Name: Ms. Mishi Choudhary, Executive Director, SFLC.IN I
E: mishi@softwarefreedom.org
Jyoti Panday—Centre for Internet & Society, India
E: jyoti@cis-india.org

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/minimising-legal-risks-of-online-intermediaries-while-protecting-user-rights

Mini Unconference on Openness in Development, Bangalore

praskrishna — 2015-09-18T01:49:43Z

Singapore Internet Research Centre and the Centre for Internet & Society are partnering together to hold a mini unconference session on Openness in Development on Day 2 of SIRCA III workshop.

For registration, please visit here or click on the image below.

Poster of the Event

Contact: Sandy PEK Sin Yee (Ms) | Project Officer (SiRC) | Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information | Nanyang Technological University, 31 Nanyang Link, #04-22, Singapore 637718

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/mini-unconference-on-openness-in-development-bangalore

Minds that (should) matter

praskrishna — 2015-02-26T16:34:25Z

Thinkers who best explain a rapidly-changing India to the world (and the world to India).

The article by Raju Narisetti was published in Forbes India magazine on January 2, 2015.

Sunil Abraham
Executive director of The Centre for Internet and Society. Has deep insights into India’s rapidly growing digital culture as well as the threats to it from misguided government regulation.

Shuddhabrata Sengupta
Runs Raqs Media Collective and is a founder of the Sarai Collective which does the rare examination of the interplay of urban India/technology/culture.

Anusha Rizvi
The former journalist who directed Peepli Live is now a filmmaker. Peepli was the first ever Indian film to be screened at Sundance. Her response to broadcast media and society issues always make you think.

Mohandas Pai
Ex-Infosys and now with the Manipal Group, he is active in public policy and corporate governance issues, and is not afraid to speak his mind. He was behind the Bangalore Political Action Committee—first-of-its-kind in India—and is also an activist shareholder who has minority shareholders’ interests in mind.

Ramesh Ramanathan
Ex-Citibanker, who heads Janalakshmi, a micro/alternative finance organisation, that has attracted Wall Street money. Offers honest and workable solutions through Janagraha, a hybrid public-private partnership initiative.

Satish Acharya
A brilliant cartoonist from Mangalore. A small-town guy whose views on Indian politics and Indian sport are spot on as he traverses the fine line of cartoons in India: Not too cerebral, but never clichéd and banal either.

Chhavi Rajawat
A young MBA who chose to go back to her ancestral village, Soda in Rajasthan, to help bring management skills to grassroots governance. Won elections to be its sarpanch. A high-profile doer, she will be worth listening to about hands-on governance.

Payal Chawla
While her past claim to fame is taking on Coca-Cola over workplace harassment, as a lawyer and founder of her own law firm, Juscontractus, this University of Chicago alumni would be a good way to track India’s troubled legal system.

Pushkar
A professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at BITS Pilani’s Goa Campus, he is particularly good on a major challenge for India: Reforming its education system.

Karuna Nundy
A Supreme Court lawyer involved in major commercial and human rights litigation and legal policy, she has contributed in a major way on gender justice in India, recently helping with the new anti-rape laws.

Binalakshmi Nepram
She fights racism against people from the North East and says it like it needs to be said in a country with deep geographical and regional prejudices.

Ireena Vittal
This former McKinsey consultant has a lot of good things to say about smart cities.

Economic and Political Weekly
Ignore its left-leaning interpretations and conclusions. Focus on its outstanding data.

GVL Narasimha Rao
GVL knows his psephology like few others do. His current turn as a spokesman for the BJP yields unrelenting evidence that is often hard to refute. And he takes sides when taking sides can be personally risky.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/forbes-india-january-2-2015-raju-narisetti-

Mind of the millennium teen

praskrishna — 2012-09-22T08:34:08Z

Say mom, did you have electricity when you were growing up?" Twelve-year-old Aditya throws a casual query at his 38-year-old mother during a power cut.

This article by Atul Sethi was published in the Times of India on September 16, 2012. Nishant Shah is quoted.

Even before the bemused mother can revert, the backup inverter springs into action and her son is once again immersed in his online game, competing against friends in multiple locations, most of whom perhaps have no idea how growing up in the 1900s — a different century for them — was like. These kids — a generation born in 2000 — would, by next year, be the millennium's first teens. Their arrival in the world roughly coincided with the dawn of the information age — the internet implosion, google search, mobile phones, glitzy malls — stuff that was not available even to their immediate predecessors growing up barely a decade before in the late 1990s.

It's a generation, then, that has seen a completely different picture of the world which has accordingly shaped its world view. That it's a smarter generation is largely due to its fascination — some would even say obsession — with technology. Arsh Srivastava, a 12-year-old student of Class VII at Chandigarh's St John's High School, says he was fascinated by mobile phones ever since he was a baby. He now uses a Samsung Galaxy S smartphone and aspires for a S3. Not surprising then, that social scientists term it a generation of 'digital natives' , who take to technology like fish to water. "You can't blame them," says Shiv Visvanathan, professor at the Jindal School of Government & Public Policy. "This is a generation that has trained in a new kind of literacy, which involves technology extensively. For them, information and technology are commodities. They'd die of boredom if deprived of either commodity."

The solution to boredom, in the tween manual, is the golden 'F' word. Facebook is the alternate world which every kid below 13 aspires to reach. What makes it cooler is that it's officially off-limits to them. But it's a restriction that's easily bypassed. Anmol, a 11-year-old from Kolkata, says most of his friends are there. Those who are not, are told off: 'Go gal'. That's 'Go, get a life dude' in tweenspeak. Once inside the inner circle, there is a sense of achievement, but only till the next new technological marvel catches their attention.

This extreme restlessness is the hallmark of a generation that has to keep pace with fast-changing technology which, many say, is leaving them with seriously low attention-spans — a problem that their teachers often have to contend with. "For teachers, the challenge is engaging them through lessons and activities that develop reflection, patience and sensitivity which can balance their moods and behaviour," says Ameeta Mulla Wattal, principal of Springdale's School at Pusa Road in Delhi.

In terms of awareness, though, again facilitated by technology, this is a generation that is aggressively aware. Sexologist Prakash Kothari says that the internet — which most kids start using by the time they are 6 or 7 — has ensured that they are sexually knowledgeable much earlier. "I have had instances of parents bringing boys as young as 8 or 9, who have started masturbating after they learnt about it from the net," he says.

Because it's a generation that's maverick in its choices, and often damning in its quick judgments on brands, marketers catering to this segment can't take them for granted. Smita Jatia of Mc Donald's , a brand that many tweens have grown up on, says it's important to keep their behaviour and dynamic wants and desires in mind. "We have to constantly innovate and elevate their 'I'm lovin it' experience through menu options which can keep them happy."

Impatient and restless may be the words that older generations may use to describe the millennium's first teens, but there's no denying that they symbolize the way society, and indeed, life has changed around the world. "We live in accelerated times," says Nishant Shah of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet & Society. "The breathlessness of our times is evident in everything — from the kind of movies we make to the ways in which our news and information travel. At the end of the day, our younger generations are also products of our times."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/www-times-of-india-sept-16-2012-atul-sethi-mind-of-the-millennium-teen

Millions of Indians move from cash to digital payments. But some ask whether it’s safe

praskrishna — 2017-01-16T02:52:33Z

Minutes after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi began an ambitious new mobile-phone-payment application in December, several clones of the app popped up at Android smartphone stores.

The article by Rama Lakshmi was published by Washington Post on 14 January 2017, Sunil Abraham was quoted. Annie Gowen contributed to this report.

In the first few days, users were flooded with spam requests for money.

The Bhim app sponsored by the government was rushed out after Modi’s abrupt withdrawal of large currency bills two months ago. More than 10 million people downloaded it in just 10 days, but in a country where awareness and regulation of privacy, data protection and digital security are low, the number of cyberattacks is rising.

“We are rushing toward launching and using these plethora of financial tech apps without the exhaustive security testing and education that is needed,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Center for Internet and Society. “We are operating in a bit of a regulatory vacuum.”

Modi’s ambitious move to swap old bills for new was intended to fight the hoarding of illicit cash reserves. But it was derailed by shoddy implementation, left citizens in Asia’s third-largest economy without cash for weeks, slowed manufacturing and sent workers home, and is now likely to significantly affect the country’s economic growth this year, economists say. It was acutely painful for a country where 80 percent of transactions were conducted with cash.

Modi quickly responded by turning the adversity into a call for Indians to kick their overwhelming dependence on cash and opt for digital payments overnight. The Bhim app is just one of many available. But in this leap, experts say, security concerns are being overlooked.

The new payment apps and e-wallet companies are governed by India’s outdated information technology law of 2008 and central bank guidelines.

“India urgently needs a new digital payment law that regulates all these mobile payment apps that have sprung up overnight,” said Pavan Duggal, a cyber-law expert. “We are right now in a completely uncharted and unsupervised territory legally. The norms for wallet companies are undefined. If I lose my money due to a fraud, I can go round and round in circles with no remedy.”

The central bank recently issued guidelines asking payment banks to carry out security audits, but Duggal said “there is no penalty or punishment for noncompliance.”

The problem is compounded by the fact that education about security risks online is abysmally sparse, especially in India’s small towns and villages. Indians are complacent about cyber risks in their online behavior, according to the Norton Cyber Security Insights Report. India does not have a privacy law.

India reported more than 39,000 incidents of cyberattacks in the first nine months of 2016, according to the government, including phishing, scanning and probing, website intrusions, defacements, virus and malicious code, and denial-of-service attacks.

“The Pentagon got hacked, right? You haven’t closed down the Pentagon as yet,” said Piyush Goyal, a minister. “These things will happen, and we have to be one step ahead of the hackers and the so-called security breaches and continuously improving and improvising as they do in America or other developed economies.”

In October, top banks had to fix the security codes of about 3.2 million debit cards in one of the biggest data breaches in India. Some users complained that their cards had been used in China.

Last month, hackers attacked Twitter and email accounts of prominent politicians and journalists and defaced the website of the National Security Guard, an elite commando force.

“The focus of global hackers has shifted to India. The cyber risk is a direct fallout of the growth in the number of digital users,” said Saket Modi, the chief executive of Lucideus Tech, the firm that conducted the security audit of the government’s Bhim app.

Since the cash crunch began, the largest private e-wallet company, Paytm, has experienced a 400 percent jump in new downloads.

But only 342 million people access the Internet on their mobile phones. The government has introduced dial-in service for those who have basic cellphones to make digital payments.

The government is airing radio jingles telling citizens not to share their personal identification numbers and has a toll-free helpline to teach people how to make online payments.

“Officials understand how security worries can be a big dampener in their campaign to get people to go digital,” said Vinayak Godse, senior director at the Data Security Council of India, an industry body that advises the government.

But in a trade-off between convenience and security, the central bank recently waived the mandatory two-factor authentication for transactions less than $30 online.

Some cybersecurity experts say that Indians are not ready for this step.

The police recently arrested a gang in the eastern state of Jharkhand; operators were calling people posing as bank executives and tricking them into sharing their card details. They used the cards to do online shopping and transferred money into their e-wallet accounts.

“People are gullible and can be threatened or lured to part with their bank details easily. We need as many safeguards as we can have,” said Surendra Kumar, a senior police officer in New Delhi who busted the gang.

But the biggest problem people face is that police in one state get very little cooperation from those in another state in digital-crime complaints, said Rakshit Tandon, a cybersecurity expert who trains police, military members and school students.

“Only in big-ticket frauds will police departments from different states coordinate their investigations,” Tandon said. “If a person loses a relatively smaller amount digitally, the case won’t go far. Even though that amount may mean a lot in that person’s life.”

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/washington-post-january-14-2017-rama-lakshmi-millions-of-indians-move-from-cash-to-digital-payments

Milestones

praskrishna — 2012-10-02T00:12:54Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/milestones.jpg

Mikel Maron

praskrishna — 2012-02-11T03:34:29Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/mikel_maron.jpg

Mike

praskrishna — 2012-02-15T09:34:50Z

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Microsoft says WannaCry ransomware must be a wake-up call for governments

praskrishna — 2017-06-07T00:55:40Z

Computer security experts said the current attack could have been much worse but for the quick action of a young researcher in Britain who discovered a vulnerability in the ransomware itself, known as WanaCryptor 2.0. It has, however, retweeted a blog post by Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer at Microsoft, who directs much of the blame toward the USA government, arguing that it should have alerted the $524 billion tech titan about the problem.

The article was published in Journaldu Maghreb on May 20, 2017

"This is an emerging pattern in 2017", he continued. "We have seen vulnerabilities stored by the Central Intelligence Agency show up on WikiLeaks, and now this vulnerability stolen from the NSA has affected customers around the world", wrote Smith in a blog post on Sunday. Then there's the US government, whose Windows hacking tools were leaked to the internet and got into the hands of cybercriminals.

"An equivalent scenario with conventional weapons would be the U.S. military having some of its Tomahawk missiles stolen", Mr Smith wrote. Brad Smith, Microsoft's top lawyer, criticized US intelligence agencies for "stockpiling" software code that can be used by hackers. In February, Smith first called for the creation of what he has dubbed a Geneva Convention for cyberspace, which would outlaw nation-state cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and tech companies.

Cyber-security firm HumanFirewall said that on account of high use of pirated Windows operating system in India, it was more susceptible to the attack. Microsoft has connected previous exploits of its products released by the mysterious Shadow Brokers group to tools which were stolen from NSA cyber warfare operations. "All our systems are updated as required". This sophisticated, self-propagating malware was created to spread to all other computers on the same network after infecting one machine.

Estimates by law enforcement agency Europol estimated yesterday that more than 200,000 computers in 150 countries were infected, but with the worm continuing to spread to vulnerable Windows machines, that number will surely rise. When 22 year olds are the heroes of the anti-cyber attack fight, rather than the agencies tasked to defend countries against these types of threats, it is perhaps time to question what these organisations have been doing all this time? NHS staff shared screenshots of the WannaCry programme, which demanded a payment of $300 (£230) in virtual currency Bitcoin to unlock the files for each computer. That dump included a vulnerability codenamed EternalBlue, which preys on a flaw in Microsoft Word to transmit malicious software from one Windows Computer to another. Usually used by cyber criminals, ransomware is a popular means of making illicit money from victims who have to pay the criminals in order to have their data decrypted.

Today is likely to be painful for many organizations all over the world that took the weekend off and are returning to the work-week to find hundreds or thousands of computers on their networks encrypted by WannaCry ransomware, which surfaced Friday and has been propagating ever since. It was a stress-filled weekend for many IT workers this past weekend as the WannaCry ransomware attack spread, crippling Windows systems worldwide.

Security firm BinaryEdge, which specializes in internet-wide scans, has detected more than 1 million Windows systems that have the SMB service exposed to the internet. "Otherwise they're literally fighting the problems of the present with tools from the past", he said. However, a cyber security expert working with the Centre for Internet and Society, Udbhav Tiwari working on vulnerabilities such as these, said as most ATMs in the country especially of the public-sector banks run on outdated operating systems, or are not updated regularly, they can be easily compromised. This allowed users of the older systems to secure their computers without requiring an upgrade to the latest operating software.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/journaldu-maghreb-may-20-2017-microsoft-says-wannacry-ransomware-must-be-a-wake-up-call