The lockdown due to pandemic has forced the majority of the workforce to work from home. While the world is still new to this change and slowly adapting to it, hackers have found many ways to attack arguably less secure systems that were previously monitored and controlled through secure networks. One such major slip in online security was caused by Zoom, and online video-conferencing application. In his interview with the YouTube channel ‘Avatar Live’, Vinod takes the initiative to let people know the precautionary steps that they should take to secure and protect their data in a remote working environment.

Collaborating with the NDTV HINDU news channel in 2010, Vinod exposed the threats associated with Magnetic Credit Card Thefts. With a magnetic reader writer and a laptop, a hacker could simply create multiple copies of a credit card and use it to exploit the card owner’s funds.

Vinod has helped expose DeepFakes and the risk that they impose. Deepfakes are essentially algorithms that take in information, process them according to the inputs that we provide, and delivers an output. It is mostly used for faking videos where it can alter the contents of the original video without tampering the essence of it. Deepfake videos almost always have an uncanny resemblance to the originals, so it becomes easy for people to be swayed away by such videos. For example, a video of PM Narendra Modi’s speech can be altered to deliver misleading information by using Deepfakes. Thus, Deepfakes have the potential to be a national threat, if used for malicious purposes.

Call spoofing is a spoofing technique where the hacker is able to display a trusted caller ID and disguise their original caller ID, thereby manipulating people and getting away with their personal information. Vinod has aided in making calls more secure by conducting end-to-end network and information security audits for telecom regulators in South Asia. Apart from that, Vinod and his team have performed a security audit on telecom networks like Airtel Africa, Greencom, West Africa, Verizon, Dialog Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Telecom, and SingTel (Singapore Telecommunications Limited).  

Vinod, in 2009, collaborated with NDTV HINDU to shed light on the wireless insecurities in and around Chennai with the use of a GPS system, W2PA antenna and a laptop. By wardriving around Chennai (an act in which hackers drive around the neighbourhood to look for exploitable WiFi networks), Vinod demonstrated how simple and easy it was to hack poorly unprotected and open WiFi networks.

 He was able to get into the Park Sheraton Hotel’s open WiFi network. Within a span of 20 Kms, Vinod exposed over 800 insecure WiFi networks. These networks are a honeypot for hackers and malicious users who can cloak their identity, use these open networks to conduct hacks on other websites and systems, misrepresent the source of a hack, and redirect investigations.

VPN stands for Visual Private Network, a network that offers privacy on the internet. However, VPN’s abilities are construed such that people have come to believe that by using a VPN, one can remain anonymous on the internet. But this cannot be any further away from the truth. VPNs are subnetworks that are hosted by companies that provide these services. These companies will have logs and records of activity, of users who opt for their service. What a VPN can do is anonymize your activity from your neighbour or your ISP, but your activities are not ‘off-the-record’. Vinod helps create a better understanding of VPNs in the episode of ‘Cyber Thirai’.

In one of the episodes of the ‘Cyber Thirai’ program on Puthiya Thalaimurai, Vinod explains the risks of malicious mobile applications and malware that hack your mobile devices via porn websites. When you visit a porn website, you are being enticed to click certain advertisements. Such advertisements can easily be created using WebRTC, a feature of HTML5 that collects the public IP, private IP, and the location (that is, your personal information) of a device.

 These ads when clicked, lead you to another website where an application of size in the order of kilobytes is downloaded onto your mobile. This application gives the hacker entire control over your mobile device, which can use to obtain credit card information, social media passwords, and profile information. Vinod further explains how these hackers activate the front camera of your devices using a technique called ‘LiveJacking’.