Recent successes of a small group of cybersecurity enthusiasts at Amrita seem to have awakened much interest in the subject, motivating many students and faculty to learn more about the fascinating world of computer hacking.

Recent national-level workshops at the Schools of Arts and Sciences in Kochi and Mysore encouraged participants to delve deep into the many faceted security considerations of the cyber world.

Both hackers and ethical hackers employ the same methods, but to different ends. A hacker seeks to break into computer systems while an ethical hacker tries to discover vulnerabilities in a computer system, to ward off potential hackers.

Ethical hackers are highly sought professionals who can help organizations understand and manage the risk with storing increasing amounts of data online.

Several experts including Dr. K. Paulose Jacob, Director, School of Computer Science Studies, CUSAT; Sri. Arshadeep Singh, Corporate Trainer and Sri. Kesav Bajaj, Business Manager, Kyrion Ltd. New Delhi interacted with the delegates, answering their questions

.In addition to learning about popular modes of cyber attack and techniques to counter them, delegates understood how to build secure systems. They received toolkits and certificates before the workshop came to a close.

Meanwhile, at the Mysore campus, during April 7-8, five hundred participants, including students and faculty from about thirty colleges in and around Mysore city, attended a two-day educational workshop on cyber security and cloud computing.

The first day of the workshop covered concepts of cloud computing and its relevance and impact on various fields. The second day’s activities centered around cyber security.

Highlighting various threats associated with the cyber world, Dr. N. Sethumadhavan, Head of the Centre for Cyber Security at Amrita, Coimbatore, discussed automation, phases of automated attack, increasing sophistication of attack tools and methods for surviving attacks.

Prashant Nair, Vice-Chairman – Information Technology, Amrita School of Engineering, Coimbatore, further elaborated on different forms of cyber threats including sniffer, spoofing, trojan horse, back doors, malicious applets and key logger software.

He also provided a glimpse of possible changes that cloud computing could bring about in business models currently in practice.

Ranjith Kizhakke Palam, technical consultant with Microsoft’s Global Partner Services, discussed socio-economic approaches towards the deployment of cloud computing solutions in India.

“The sessions were very informative and we learned about many new and upcoming technologies,” stated first-year MCA student, Sherly Chancpa.

Added Nandini, another first-year MCA student, “The workshop was interactive and relevant examples by the speakers made it very useful and understandable.”

May 2, 2011
Schools of Arts and Sciences, Kochi and Mysore