Brussels, Aug 30: The European Union on Monday recommended that its member states reimpose travel restrictions on US tourists over rising covid infections in the country.

   The European Council, which represents the bloc’s 27 governments, said it was taking six territories off its list of locations exempted from restrictions on non-essential travel during the coronavirus pandemic.

   “Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro, the Republic of North Macedonia and the United States of America were removed from the list,” a statement said.

     The move is not binding on national capitals, which may yet choose to allow fully vaccinated US travellers to visit despite concerns about rising numbers of Covid cases in the country.

But most EU members have followed Brussels’ travel advice during the crisis so far.

    “This is without prejudice to the possibility for member states to lift the temporary restriction on non-essential travel to the EU for fully vaccinated travellers,” the statement said.

       Non-essential travel into the bloc from outside the EU and eight associated countries — Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, Switzerland, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican — has been restricted.

Some countries and territories, however, have been exempted from this list, but their number has been shrinking in recent months and now includes only 17 members, plus China if Beijing reciprocates.

  The EU recommended its member states lift restrictions on non-essential travel from the US in June ahead of the peak of the summer tourist season.

   That decision came as the US was making major strides with its vaccination programme.

   Case numbers in the country have since surged as the more infectious delta variant has spread and large swathes of the population have refused to get vaccinated.

The human security institute has organized a webinar on prospects of Human Security in Afghanistan

Arij Ghaznvi

ISLAMABAD: The human Security Institute organized a webinar on prospects of Human Security in Afghanistan on Monday. A wide array of stakeholders had joined as speakers especially Amb. Asif Durrani, Dr Salma Malik, Dr Husnul Amin, Brig Mehmood Shah and the Chief  Guest Mr Saleem Safi.

Ambassador Durrani emphasized upon the importance of Afghanistan being a neighboring country that there will be a spillover effect in terms of hostility, honor and revenge. Dr Salma mostly focused on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan by explaining that how children, women and especially refugees are affected by this political vacuum created in Afghanistan. Dr Husnul Amin also shed light on humanity being compromised be it freedom of social life or political freedom. Brig Mahmood Shah highlighted that there must be no external interference in the politics of the Afghan Taliban to peacefully settle the issue. Saleem Safi pointed out some ignored areas by sharing his views on the celebrations of Taliban’ control in Afghanistan.

He explained that there are two possibilities one is the recognition and the other is non-recognition of the Taliban Internationally. The latter case would result in two ways first, it would be suicide for Pakistan and second, the Taliban might reverse in their socio-political affairs. The director-general THSI MrRafique Ahmed Qureshi concluded the event by saying that a great debate of political settlement is going on. Amid this, there must be measures to ensure, enforce and strengthen Human Security in Afghanistan as humans are the most affected subjects for decades. He also thanked the speakers for gracing the event and re uttered that the human security institute will raise the voice for the security of human rights on every platform.

WhatsApp boasts the world’s most secure encryption, but hackers can use social engineering to make their way into your chats – through you, the user. Here’s how to stay one step ahead and keep your data safe on WhatsApp.

WhatsApp, the secure messenger acquired by Facebook in 2014, currently has over 2 billion active users. These users are all protected by end-to-end encryption that keeps their chats safe from prying eyes — in fact WhatsApp is also unable to see the contents of your messages. This is thanks to the encryption protocol created by the developers of Signal Messenger, which has been implemented in WhatsApp.

While end-to-end encryption and protect users from hackers trying to read their messages over the network, hackers still manage to get the information they need from users. WhatsApp authenticates users based on their phone number, sending a verification code over SMS. As part of the scheme to “hack” a user’s account, many WhatsApp users have received scam calls and messages in the past, from malicious users who ask for “help” while posing as a known person.

This “social engineering” usually includes asking for a verification code along with excuses such as “their phone network is unavailable”. Soon after the user shares the six-digit code, the hacker gains access to their account.

Unfortunately, while you might think many users would not fall for such a scam, the reality is that many people who do not understand the way verification codes work, think they are helping their friend, but are actually handing full control of their account to the attacker. Once the attacker is in, they can simply transfer the number (along with all your groups) to another number and delete your original account. They can also pretend to be you, while cheating your friends out of their accounts too.

If you want to prevent all of the above from happening to you, here are the steps to securing your WhatsApp account. The first step is to simply decline any requests from anyone claiming to be your friend, asking for a verification code — no matter the reason.

Enable two-step verification

This setting is by far the most important setting users must enable on their WhatsApp account in order to protect themselves from hackers. The setting allows you to set a six digit PIN on your account, that will be used to unlock your account after you receive your SMS verification code. Even if a hacker manages to get hold of your SMS code, they will not be able to log in to your account if they do not have this code.

Step 1) Go to WhatsApp Settings, tap on Account and then tap on Two-Step verification.

Step 2) Now enable the setting and enter a PIN. You will need to reenter the PIN to make sure you entered it correctly.

Step 3) WhatsApp has saved your PIN at this point, but it will keep asking you to enter your PIN from time to time just to ensure that you do not forget it and get locked out of your own account.

Double check your privacy settings

While these settings are not directly related to hackers taking control of your account, they can give attackers a very good idea of who you are and the people you are in contact with, which can be users for social engineering. To prevent this from happening, you should set your privacy settings to keep your personal information out of the hands of hackers and unscrupulous elements.

Step 1) Go to WhatsApp Settings and tap on Account and tap on Privacy.

Step 2) Now check settings for Last Seen, About, Profile Photo and Status. Make sure these are all set to “My contacts” to ensure no one who you do not know can see this information.

Step 3) Make sure that you block any messages from unknown senders asking for personal information and report them to WhatsApp using the in-chat menu.