Events & Seminars

Computer Society of India (CSI), Delhi Chapter, in collaboration with Management Education & Research Institute (MERI), New Delhi jointly organized a National Seminar on “Cyber Security - Issues and Challenges” on 10th October 2015 at MERI, New Delhi. Two Students, Ankit Sharma (16021) and Akashdeep Singh (16010) from Department of Computer Science & Engineering of Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon attended the seminar.

The chief guest of seminar was Prof. Arvind Kumar, Vice- Chancellor, RLBCA University, Jhansi. The other speakers included Lt. Vineet Kumar, President of Cyber Peace Foundation, Shri Yudhister Sharma, Chairman, CSI, Delhi Chapter, Dr. R.C. Agrawal, Registrar General of PPV & FRA, Govt. of India and Shri Ravi Vijayvargiya, Senior Technical Director & HOD Network Security Division NIC (HQ) New Delhi, Shri I.P.Aggarwal, Founder President, MERI, Prof. Lalit Aggarwal, Vice President, MERI, Prof. Y.L. Grover, Director General, MERI, Dr. R.C.Goyal, Prof. and Dean, Information Technology, MERI.

During the inauguration ceremony, Prof. Arvind Kumar discussed about an annual corporate thought leadership series, which is a platform for young innovative students from several universities to come face to face with the leadership in the IT sector. He said that new ways are required in enhancing the technical skills of students as it comprises of conceptual & practical knowledge.

Prof. Arvind Kumar discussed that Cyber Security, focuses on protecting computers, networks, programs and data from unintended or unauthorized access, change or destruction. He said that over the past several years, experts and policy makers have expressed increasing concerns about protecting ICT systems from cyber-attacks such as deliberate attempts by unauthorized persons to access ICT systems, usually with the goal of theft, disruption, damage, or other unlawful actions. Prof. Kumar stated that many experts expect the number and severity of cyber- attacks to increase over the next several years.

He further highlighted the benefits of Internet, which is primary computing platform for our day to day activities may be through, Standalone apps, Web-based apps and Cloud computing. He said that most frequently used computer applications, such as Gaming, Search engines, Emailing, Texting, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter ,Amazon, eBay, Wikipedia, Google Drive, Web Browsers (HTTP) have largely became the part of Cyber Space.

During the talk, Lt Vineet Kumar discussed about the importance of Cyber Security. Governments, military, corporations, financial institutions, hospitals and other businesses collect, processes and store a great deal of confidential information on computers and transmit that data across networks to other computers. With the growing volume and sophistication of cyber-attacks, on-going attention is required to protect sensitive business and personal information, as well as safeguard national security.

Lt. Kumar stated that Cyber security is also sometimes conflated inappropriately in public discussion with other concepts such as privacy, information sharing, intelligence gathering, and surveillance. Privacy is associated with the ability of an individual person to control access by others to information about that person. He said that good cyber security can help protect privacy in an electronic environment, but information that is shared to assist in cyber security efforts might sometimes contain personal information that at least some observers would regard as private.

There was an interactive session related to issues of Cyber Security that led to major challenges. Dr. R.C. Agrawal said that for effectively facing the challenges; todays world require not only innovations, but also collaborations among all communities such as industries, academia, and the general public. Universities and Colleges play a central role in creation and strengthening the solution by producing the human workforce, R&D, and other related services.

At the end, an interactive questions and answers session was there in which participants raised questions and their related doubts about the topic. It was a great experience as the seminar covered various concepts, related issues and challenges faced in Cyber Security.

Some Glimpses: