Rizwan Shaikh is a well-known Information Security Researcher and Cyber Crime Consultant with more than 10 years of experience in the field of Ethical Hacking, Information Security, and Cyber Law. He is an eminent personality in the cyber world, he has been supervising Ethical Hacking training and providing Information Security services across the globe.

Rizwan Shaikh is a Cyber Security expert who is also, the founder of the company Pristine InfoSolutions Private Limited, a global IT service, and Information Security company focused on delivering smart, next-generation business solutions that assist enterprises across the world to overcome their business challenges.
The company has around 50 plus mentors, excelling in services like Cyber Security, Cyber Audit, Cyber Crime Investigations, as well as Information Security.

IMPACT OF ETHICAL HACKING ON BUSINESSES AND THE SOCIETY

Rizwan mentioned that Pristine InfoSolutions has a separate unit for the training of corporate people and for teenagers who have an inclination towards ethical hacking, However, their parents have a mentality that if their child learns ethical hacking, he/she might end up committing a crime. According to Rizwan, hacking is an art in which people have knowledge about network systems and other devices which they use to protect the safety of an organization.

Rizwan says that ethical hacking can be understood simply with its definition. When the data of an organization is used with proper consent and permission to prevent it from attacks, the practice is referred to as ‘ethical’. The intention of the hacker can be to corrupt the data as well, which is ‘unethical’. To put it in simpler terms, the intention is going to decide whether the practice is ‘ethical’ or ‘unethical’.

IS ETHICAL HACKING BECOMING A NECESSITY?

Rizwan believes that ethical hacking is essential for all businesses, and with the lockdown imposed, employees working from home have to spend much of their time on the internet and they do not possess a separate dedicated firewall and other security protocols which they used to have in the environment of the office setup. Cyber Crime is definitely increasing in these times of the Coronavirus crisis. So, indirectly the responsibility, as well as the need of the time, is that every company has a Cyber Security department or at least has its Cyber Security division or an outsourced consultancy partner to protect the company from cyber-attacks.

RISKS FACED BY SMALL BUSINESSES

Rizwan opined that even the people who are just having a basic residual income, are also vulnerable to become a victim of Cyber Crime. One cannot say that they are hackproof as have not been a target yet. So whether those organizations are big corporate giants or small businesses, they are prone to a Cyberattack, however for small businesses it might be more difficult to cope up with the loss due to the finances.

ROLE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN FIGHTING AGAINST CYBERCRIMES

Rizwan believes that Artificial Intelligence has been evolving a lot. There is a lot of money spent for the advancement of Cyber Security techniques. AI benefits Cyber Security with automated techniques to generate whenever cyber threats are detected. It plays an important role in many of the cases that the company has witnessed, which also detects that there have been many tools and products being launched by many of the big organizations which are completely AI-based but working for the Cyber Security domain. So, AI has a huge impact but it is not considered as a separate entity. The use of AI in the service of beauty products is what is trending at the moment.

RULES AND REGULATIONS THAT SHOULD BE TAKEN CARE OF IN THE DIGITAL SPACE

Rizwan stated that one very simple rule is to make sure that one sets a very strong password credential, possibly an alphanumeric password, which includes some numbers and the password should be a combination of characters, it is also important to keep changing the password every month or two. He also stated that it is essential to make sure not to install any unknown and untested software, this will increase the attack surface for Cyber Criminals and they will be paid for attacks like Trojans and other malware.

INDIA’S POLICIES ON CYBERSECURITY AND CYBER LAW

According to Rizwan, the laws in India with regard to Cyber Security are upgrading gradually, he also mentioned that upgrading technology does not take as much time as taken by the government to upgrade law or make amendments, which might take many years. However, he indicates that positive changes are being brought in like the recent news of compliance guidelines and rules and regulations of different social media platforms.

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