Caution is the password to counter cyber snooping

Cyberspace is jam-packed with options and they can reach you through even a smartphone received as gift

Seven years ago, a Malayali man settled in the United States approached a cyber expert here with an offer of ₹1 lakh a month for snooping on his wife. Four years later, another man from Singapore approached the same person with a somewhat similar assignment, only with four times the previous offer. “He did not even reveal whether the woman was his wife, girlfriend or someone unrelated. It was as if the fee was also for not asking questions,” said the expert who turned down both offers, which were outright illegal. As ominous as it may sound, snooping, cyber experts observed, was a commonly deployed tool. “It is widely prevalent in the corporate world to preempt leak of company secrets. Legal profession is not free from it as rival clients are being snooped on. Private detectives also employ it for their clients,” said Nandakishore Harikumar, who runs a cybersecurity start-up.