The 'Ethical Hacker', who has been made one of the icons of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious project, Digital India, Ankit Fadia speaks to Rutam Vora explaining how more engagement of people in "ethical" hacking can potentially create an attractive employment opportunity for youth in India. Excerpts:
In the time of e-commerce boom and rapid rise in online transactions, how vulnerable are the Indian sites to hacking?
The Reserve Bank of India has made it mandatory to have internet password for transactions, without which you can not proceed. It could be a one-time-password (OTP) sent to your mobile phone or an internet password that you have configured. This is not mandatory in other countries like United States and others. India is one step ahead in security. Also, India's e-commerce start-ups are forward looking and adopted bounty programme to reward hackers, who dig-out any vulnerability in their platform or site. First, it was a trend in Silicon Valley, US, with Facebook, Apple, Microsoft running such programmes. Indian start-ups are very closely connected with American start-ups because of the foreign investors. But, traditional entities like banks or family-run businesses don't believe in such programmes.
As brand ambassador of Digital India campaign, what future do you see for youth of India in ethical hacking?
Today, if you want to become a hacker and pursue a career, you have to first do a regular degree or diploma and then get some certification programme from outside. The Government does not have their own programmes in university colleges, where students can do one year PG programme. But that is required to give it more legitimacy. Today, common problem the students face is that their parents' hesitation towards hacking career. Once it becomes mainstream, more and more people would get into hacking. Currently, people join for fun and learn hacking. Companies do hire hackers. On job portals you will find many such postings where hackers are required by the companies.
You train students for ethical hacking. Is there any example of successful ethical hacker?
Yes, there is a person called Manu Zakaria, he was one of the toppers in my batches so I asked him to co-author a book with me. Today he is a consultant to police departments not just in India but overseas too, Vietnam, Iran among others and train police there. His is a stellar example. He was an ex-military buy and was a technically sound person and pursued this career full-time. The number of cyber crime has increased. Earlier, it was only computer network getting hacked but now we see mobile phones also getting hacked. So, the number of crimes has increased and the scope for ethical hackers has also widened.
How do you see the future of Digital India?
Digital India is a very ambitious project. These might sound like buzz words, but to me its more of a message for every body. It will take time to show on ground, because creating infrastructure will require a lot of investment. Involving the private sector will attract investments and create jobs and provide connectivity to rural areas and help uplift people. Prime Minister Modi's visit to Facebook and Google in the US gives a message of creating India's own Googles or Facebooks. We just have to be patient and believe in it. Eventually, we will see the results.