Pune one of the rapidly developing IT destinations in the country after to Bangalore and Hyderabad, seems unconcerned about its cyber security. Despite several awareness campaigns conducted by various organizations, nearly 50 per cent of the Wi-Fi internet connections in the city remain insecure. This was revealed by the survey conducted by Cop-Tech forum in collaboration with cyber crime cell of police. The revelations have come as a disappointment for the city’s cyber police who feel that in-spite of their entire efforts city’s netizens have not learnt any lessons.

The awareness campaigns conducted by the city police along with IT firms in the wake of the arrest of the city based software engineer Mohammad Mansoor Asghar Peerbhoy, who was working as the leader of the media cell for the terror outfit-Indian Mujahideen. He had misused open Wi-Fi networks to send terror mails to Media and the police in 2008.

Rajendra Dahale, deputy commissioner of police (cyber cell) informed that team comprising inspector Sanjay Tungar of cyber crime cell and ethical hacker Rohit Srivastava of ClubHack toured the city to check the Wi-Fi network security.

We conducted the survey in the same areas that we surveyed in 2008. Once again 50 per cent of the Wi-Fi connections were found open. The corporate firms have secured their Wi-Fi connections. But the individual Wi-Fi connections and those at places such as hotels and airports have still not been secured

said he.

In 2008, the percentage of connections secured by Wireless Equivalent Privacy (WEP) was 31. In 2009, it has dropped to 25 per cent. The Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) was 19 per cent in 2008. It has gone up to 25 per cent in 2009

he said
In the meantime, City based IT firm Data 64 Techno Solutions Private Limited, in association with cyber crime cell of police had conducted an “e-awareness survey” in seven colleges across the city. This initiative was meant to spread awareness among city students regarding network security. As per the findings, the awareness in the city youths about the network security is very low as most of the students never change their email passwords.

It is very important to change the password frequently for security reasons. We found 35 per cent of the youngsters change their passwords once a month,” said Gokul Narayan, director of Data 64 Techno Solutions Private Limited. He said 45 per cent of the youngsters used a free version of anti-virus software that is not really effective. “Sixty per cent were not aware that misuse of peer-to-peer applications is illegal and leads to an increase in software and music piracy

he said.