Aligarh: Professor M Sarosh Umar, from the Department of Computer Engineering in AMU,  delivered a session on “The Challenges and Best Practices for Secure User Authentication in Digital Age” at a five-day AICTE-ATAL sponsored online Faculty Development Program on “Cyber Security in Smart Cities” recently organized by National Institute of Technology, Raipur.

The other eminent speakers at FDP were Padma Shri Professor Bimal Kumar Roy, Former Director, Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata, Professor Santosh Biswas, Department of EE, and CS Indian Institute of Technology Bhilai, and many other Professors from different IITs and NITs.

Professor Umar highlighted that financial losses to the tune of $50 billion worldwide have occurred over recent times due to identity theft and such cases have further increased during the pandemic. He stressed the need for stronger authentication techniques to increase the security of accounts from hackers and listed the limitations of the conventional authentication methods.

He apprised the participants regarding the ingenious techniques that the hackers are adopting to break into the passwords and emphasized the need for robust, secure, and user-friendly passwords. Professor Umar also discussed the guidelines to create stronger passwords that cannot be easily breached and to avoid weak passwords.