Since the start of lockdown, seminars; meetings; and conferences have shifted online. How beneficial is it? It’s the only way to communicate amid shutdown. And what about the difficulties? Pretty much. Here, we are not discussing technical flaws causing the disruption but the spammers.
Girls in Tech – Nepal recently got us informed the spammers that participated in its webinars (which started since the end of March 2020) anonymously disturbed their sessions to such extent that the company had to terminate and postpone a number of them. However, they did notify us to have tracked the fraudulent.
Anjali Phuyal, CEO of Genese Cloud Academy and Founder of Girls in Tech – Nepal, on the event, shared, “After we faced such disturbances, we tracked the users through their emails and we came to know they were doing it in an organized way. They had formed a private Facebook group where they used to note down all the webinars that are happening in Nepal and abroad. After the webinars started, they would spam and hijack these sessions. Such activities are cybercrime and punishable by law. After we tracked them and found that they are young college students who didn’t know the consequences of such activities, we contacted and warned them that we will take action if they continue such behavior. They have promised to not repeat such activities in the future and provided a written apology and hence we decided to forgive them as taking them with law enforcement at this stage will ruin their career and life”.
Similarly, the Robotics Association of Nepal (RAN)’s Miss Tech wing noted a similar activity in a virtual panel discussion hosted on the 27th of April. Spammers reportedly posted vulgar comments in live video session chat threads creating an awkward situation for guests and participants. Miss Tech Coordinator, Shova Shedai shared, “We faced spammer activity during our virtual panel discussion live through the Facebook page. A Facebook user through an anonymous profile made multiple comments using vulgar words in the LIVE video of the virtual panel discussion. We had senior and respected speakers so we felt bad seeing such comments, and had to delete the comments at that moment. Such spammer activity is really disgusting and we don’t want to let this type of crime go as normal. We are raising our voices for controlling this kind of activity”.
NxtGen reports another such event during its ‘COVID-19 Preparedness for Students’ session hosted on 27 April. It was said to be hosted in order to prepare individuals for upcoming uncertain times owing to the COVID-19 outbreak. Organizers during the session noticed few audiences from fake emails bringing misery to the audience and speakers. Though NxtGen did manage to fix the security vulnerability and instantly work with law enforcement. It reportedly traced down the breachers and plans to file a cybercrime case soon.
In recent times, cybercrimes have majorly grown in Nepal. Be it from unawareness or ignorance, cybercriminals seem to be quite open in unethical activities. Girls in Tech – Nepal quotes this stage a high time to raise awareness and take necessary actions.
