BY KUDZAI CHIMHANGWA.
Harare, Zimbabwe. (News Of The South) – The advent of and development of information technology has without doubt brought relief to society as so many things can be done at the click of a button. The hapless single mother juggling errands from picking up schoolchildren to doing household chores can now simply pay bills and do shopping online. Likewise, students inundated by mountains of scholarly research can simply search for information online. However, just as every coin has another side so does usage of the internet.
Two scandalous activities continue to hog the lime light of information technology, namely phishing and plagiarism. Phishing, which derives its name from the word fishing as it involves luring clients as it were, is a form of fraud in which the perpetrator attempts to obtain information such as login credentials or email account information by pretending to be a
reputable entity or person in email, or other social media channels. The victim usually receives an email message, with questionable credentials.
Up to 47% of all phishing attacks last year were aimed at stealing victims’ money, a 13% increase over 2015, according to Kaspersky Labs’ Financial Cyberthreats in its 2016 report.
“For the first time in 2016, the detection of phishing pages which mimicked legitimate banking services took first place in the overall chart, as criminals sought to trick their victims into believing they were looking at genuine banking content or entering their details into real banking systems,” the report says.
Standard Bank Namibia Public Relations and Marketing Manager, Surihe Goamas-Guchu said that this type of fraudulent activity has been doing its rounds and more people continue to fall victim to the practice.
“Fraudsters send you unsolicited emails, which are purportedly from the bank. Usually these emails request you to click on a link in the email in order to update your personal details. Once clicked, the link will redirect you to a fraudulent website. Your personal details are
then sent to the fraudsters,” she said.
Guchu said that there are several methods which clients and other unsuspecting people in the public can use to avoid falling victim to phishing.
These range from typing the website address into your Internet browser rather than clicking on a hyperlink in the email, only using secure Internet banking sites, being wary of unusually long website addresses and in the case of the bank, contacting one’s bank immediately if one has compromised confidential information.
“Remember that a bank will never request you to confirm confidential information via email or the Internet,” she said.
Independent analyst Gift Zhuwawo, based in Windhoek, Namibia said, “ This cybercriminal practice is difficult to curb owing to a major proliferation of cyber hackers. They are very well versed in this technology. However, the best way to avoid being duped is simply not
to give any bank details. You have to check with your bank, especially those using online banking.”
He added that some people are also falling victim to more phishing scams in the form of lotto scams. They then request for bank details to transfer money into one’s account. This is when a person falls victim to the scammers.
Another challenge is that of plagiarism which basically involves copying another person’s published work, writing it off as one’s own and failing to acknowledge the original owner of the work. Plagiarism seems like an archaic concept at face value but it continues to rear its head across a wide spectrum of society in this day and age of technological innovation.
Namibia based, Amethyst Smart Brains Academy lecturer Sara Nghituwashive said that plagiarism was a burden on her work plans as she has to cross check students’ assignments with renewed vigour everytime.
“It’s basically stealing and I strongly believe that one needs to obtain permission in order to use given information. Certainly, the original owner of published information must be acknowledged,” she said.
She pointed out that lazy students or individuals seeking to pass themselves off as knowledgeable usually take to using this approach.
Interestingly, White House press corp were today caught sitting on their laurels and left with egg on their face after plagiarizing and entire paragraph from a press release.
The statement from the White House seemed to congratulate oil giant Exxon Mobil on the expansion of its operations in the Gulf of Mexico as the company announced plans to create thousands of jobs by spending $20 billion over 10 years on plants.
“The White House statement contains only minor differences, such as changing “U.S” to “United States” and removing the word “expansion” from the sentence “Growing the Gulf expansion program” from the oil company’s release,” the United Kingdom based Independent reported.
Prolific education website, timeshighereducation.com has also published an article expressing concern at how online paraphrasing tools facilitate plagiarism.
Plagiarism checking software is usually unable to detect the use of such websites, according to a new study, titled “Using internet based paraphrasing tools: original work, patchwriting or facilitated plagiarism?”.
Ann Rogerson, co-author of the paper and senior lecturer in the Faculty of Business at the University of Wollongong, warned that the ability to go undetected may lead to more intentional plagiarism among students, the website reports.
“It could breed it, especially if students use that approach and get away with it,” she told Times Higher Education. “If they’ve used the tool and got through an assessment task…that encourages them to keep on doing it.”
Plagiarism and phishing remain major dents to the gains and convenience brought about by information technology. People’s monies kept in banks remain susceptible to online phishing scams unless more people are educated about the problem. Similarly, students need to be
made aware that plagiarism is not only detrimental in the academic world, but they also need to know that the academic world is aware of this practice and it’s ever evolving technologies.
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