The applications of modern technology have allowed us to spearhead the Information &Technology sector for all aspects of our lives at an unprecedented rate. However, the risk of our privacy and security being vulnerable to malicious parties has also significantly increased. Hence, it is visible that the modern technology has allowed many to uncontrolled access to our information.
With the masses getting used to the social media platforms as Facebook or Instagram, most of our information has been made public and available on the Internet. As a result, organizations from other countries can easily access our data, and use it to perform malicious activities, i.e. sending phishing links to people online which can make them vulnerable to a scam or getting their accounts hacked. According to the New York Times, 45 unlicensed organizations from Kerala, India have been banned by local law enforcement units, under the guise of scamming foreigners to obtain their bank credentials, or to gain access to their personal information.
Moreover, Meta has introduced “end-to-end encryption” for all of their messages to prevent the chances of surveillance and have uncontrolled access to someone’s phone by a spyware program that might be installed by hackers. However, governments have access to “Pegasus”, a program developed by an company named NSO Group. This program has been purchased by governments around the world, including China. Although the cost of surveillance for each target is high, the question still stands: if something like Pegasus exists, how much time do we have till an advanced program is made for mass surveillance of our data?
However, it is not without good news that mass technology has also allowed us to develop encryption keys and biometric passkeys, which make accessing our information much harder to be bypassed. Applications as Bitwarden now allow generation of random, but strong passwords for every account and it is saved within their cloud storage.
Nonetheless, we must resort to using modern technology with caution, and keep our private information safe and encrypted.