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UIDAI seeks 20 ethical hackers to protect its data, plug security bugs

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Amid increasing cyber attacks against key infrastructure and government websites in India, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has quietly announced a “bug bounty programme” to hire 20 ethical hackers to protect its website and resources from nation-state bad actors.

The recently-issued circular said that the programme will be limited to 20 registered candidates.

“The UIDAI reserves the right to evaluate and select top 20 suitable candidates for participation in the programme,” the authority said in its circular.

It added that the candidate should be listed in the top 100 of the bug bounty leaders board such as HackerOne, or Bugcrowd.

The candidate may also be listed in the bounty programmes “conducted by reputable companies such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple etc. or the candidate should be active in the bug bounty community/programmes and should have submitted valid bugs or received bounty in the last one year”.

The bug bounty programme of the UIDAI comes at a time when earlier reports claimed that Chinese state-sponsored hackers allegedly infiltrated and stole data from it.

The authority allayed the fears, saying, the leaking of Aadhaar numbers will not pose any hacking threat to bank accounts.

“Just as by merely knowing your ATM card number, no one can withdraw money from the ATM machine; by knowing your Aadhaar number alone, no one can hack into your bank account and withdraw money,” the UIDAI said while posting some myth busters related to Aadhaar on its website.

“Rest assured, there has not been a single case of financial loss due to Aadhaar. Aadhaar number alone cannot be used for banking or any other service,” it added.

The UIDAI said an independent committee will be formulated to assess and verify the candidates’ credentials, past bug hunting records, citation etc.

“The empanelled/registered participants need to sign Non-disclosure Agreement (NDA) with UIDAI and abide by the instructions of UIDAI,” it said.

The programme comes at a time when a total of 6,74,021 cyber security incidents have been reported this year up to June.

According to data tracked by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), a total of 3,94,499, 11,58,208, and 14,02,809 cyber security incidents were reported in 2019, 2020 and 2021, respectively.

The government issues alerts and advisories regarding the latest cyber threats and is operating an automated cyber threat exchange platform for proactively collecting, analysing and sharing tailored alerts with organisations across sectors for proactive threat mitigation actions, Union Minister of State for Home, Ajay Kumar Mishra, informed the Lok Sabha this week.

The government is also operating the Cyber Swachhta Kendra, which reports malicious programmes and free tools to the government.

Also, the National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) has been set up to generate necessary situational awareness of existing and potential cyber security threats.

National News

Important news for Jio Airtel, Vi and BSNL users, rules changing from November 1

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Important news for Jio Airtel, Vi and BSNL users, rules changing from November 1

Technology Desk, New Delhi: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) is continuously working to curb spam and fake calls. A few days ago, new telecom rules were implemented, which were brought by the government body with the aim of curbing fake and spam calls. New rules are being implemented again from November 1. After which there will be more strictness on such calls.

TRAI has asked all telecom companies to implement message traceability. However, telecom companies have objected to this and said that doing so will affect their work.

New rules will be implemented

New telecom rules are being implemented from November 1. According to which it will be mandatory for all telecom companies to implement message traceability. By doing this, it will be easy to trace fake and spam callers. TRAI clearly said that the traceability of transactional and service messages sent by banks, e-commerce platforms and other financial institutions should be implemented compulsorily. So that the spam calls coming to the customers can be curbed.

What is message traceability?

Message traceability is a method with the help of which it is easy to trace fake and fake callers and they are blocked even before the call comes. After this, the call will become more secure than before and they can be monitored better. There are many other things that will be corrected after the message traceability rules are implemented.

Jio-Airtel and Vi’s tension increased
TRAI has made it clear that new telecom rules are coming into effect from November 1, but all the major telecom companies have expressed concern over this. They said that the implementation of message traceability will make their work difficult and many things will be affected by it.

According to a report, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has sought some time from TRAI to implement the new rules. Telecom companies said, “Instead of implementing these rules in a hurry, we want them to be implemented step by step.” Behind doing this, telecom companies say that many telemarketers and many major institutions are not ready to follow the new rule.

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Huawei launches world’s first smartphone with triple foldable display, here’s how much it costs

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Companies have been teasing its tri-fold smartphone design for a while now. However, Huawei has managed to beat everyone to the race by launching the world’s first foldable smartphone with triple foldable display. Dubbed Mate XT, the smartphone features a 10.2-inch display that can fold three times to fit in a regular phone-like form factor.

How much the phone costs

Huawei has launched the phone in China at 19999 yuan or $2800 which roughly translates to Rs 2,35,000. The phone comes in two other configurations – 16GB + 512GB and 16GB + 1TB that are priced at 21999 yuan and 23999 yuan respectively.

The phone has launched only in China and will start shipping starting September 20.

Huawei Mate XT: Features

The Huawei Mate XT features a 10.3-inch foldable OLED display, providing a large screen area when fully unfolded. It is powered by a 5600mAh battery with support for 66-watt fast charging.

The smartphone comes with a triple-camera setup, including a 50-megapixel main camera, a 12-megapixel ultrawide lens, and a 12-megapixel periscope lens, offering 5.5x optical zoom.

The triple-foldable design allows the device to fold into a Z-shape using two hinges, creating three distinct display areas. Users can partially unfold the screen.

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National News

Passport Seva Portal To Be Shut From Today: Technical Maintenance Work From August 29-September 2, All Appointments Rescheduled

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Individuals gearing up to travel and perhaps even relocate will have to wait for some days, as the Passport Seva Portal, India’s official website processing passport-related exercises, will be down from August 29 to September 2.

According to the website, the portal, “Passport Seva portal will be down for technical maintenance from 29th August 2024, Thursday 20:00 hrs IST to 2nd September, Monday 06:00 hrs IST.”

The pop notification on the government website said, “System will not be available during this period for citizens and for all MEA/RPO/BOI/ISP/DoP/Police Authorities. The already booked appointments for 30th August 2024 will be suitably rescheduled and informed to applicants.”

This therefore would mean that all the existing appointments will in all probability be rescheduled.

The Passport Seva Portal X account posted the notifications on August 25. It also reposted posts from Regional Passport Offices.

According to the External Affairs Ministry, “The External Affairs Ministry said this is a routine procedure. “For rescheduling of appointments, we always have contingency plans. The maintenance activity for a public centric service (like Passport Seva Kendras) is always planned in advance so that no inconvenience is meted out to public. So rescheduling an appointment will not be a challenge,” a source from the ministry has said.”

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