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Privacy Concerns
From politics to films and even war, the year 2023 has demonstrated that not everything one sees or hears on the internet may be real. With the ever-evolving Artificial Intelligence technology rapidly becoming a part of people's lives, a sharp rise in deepfakes has raised concerns in the country about its potential to influence electoral politics, especially during the Lok Sabha polls slated to be held next year. Deepfakes are manipulated videos or other digital representations that use artificial intelligence to create cogent videos or audio of individuals they never did or said, posing a risk of spreading misinformation and damaging their reputation. According to the '2023 State of Deepfakes Report' by 'Home Security Heroes' -- a US-based web security services company -- deepfake videos saw a five-times increase since 2019. In 2023, India witnessed scores of troubling instances related to deepfake videos, like the one involving actor Rashmika Mandanna, whose face was superimposed
The Railways has floated a tender to hire a consultant to monetise its passenger and freight customer data with the aim to generate revenue up to Rs 1,000 crore, but sources said it may be withdrawn amid concerns over privacy issues. While many on social media, including advocacy groups have raised concerns over violation of data privacy issues, government sources have clarified that the consultant would advise the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) on steps to improve its existing business and plan strategies to monetise future opportunities. While the Railways has not officially commented on the tender, highly placed sources said it will be withdrawn "considering the fact that the Data Protection Bill has not been finalised". According to the tender document, the data to be studied will include information captured by the transporter's various public facing applications such as "name, age, mobile number, gender, address, e-mail ID, class of journey, payment ..
Security pros say it's one of the worst computer vulnerabilities they've ever seen. They say state-backed Chinese and Iranian hackers and rogue cryptocurrency miners have already seized on it. The Department of Homeland Security is sounding a dire alarm, ordering federal agencies to urgently eliminate the bug because it's so easily exploitable and telling those with public-facing networks to put up firewalls if they can't be sure. The affected software is small and often undocumented. Detected in an extensively used utility called Log4j, the flaw lets internet-based attackers easily seize control of everything from industrial control systems to web servers and consumer electronics. Simply identifying which systems use the utility is a prodigious challenge; it is often hidden under layers of other software. The top US cybersecurity defense official, Jen Easterly, deemed the flaw one of the most serious I've seen in my entire career, if not the most serious in a call Monday with st