थाना कंप्यूटर: 25 MB फ़ाइल, संदिग्ध ई-मेल और बंद प्रिंटर
At a police station, five desktops run on one shared login, 'thana01'. A constable must e-mail a 25 MB scanned chargesheet PDF to the cyber cell. The mail service accepts a maximum of 10 MB per mail. A message arrives from the address '[email protected]' asking him to reply immediately with the PDF and the station login password, 'so verification can be completed today'. The scanned file on the desktop is named 'chargesheet_final.pdf.exe' and does not open properly. One printer shows 'offline' though its cable is connected, and the UPS beeps every 30 seconds. The shift ends in 40 minutes and the cyber cell says the file is needed before 6 pm.
1. Identify the red flags in the e-mail and state the correct action, with reasons.
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Two clear red flags. First, the domain: 'delhi-police-gov.in' is a look-alike; the official Delhi Police domain is 'delhipolice.gov.in', where the hyphen and the extra 'gov' are the giveaway. Second, the request itself: no genuine office asks for a login password by e-mail, and the pressure of 'today' is a standard urgency trick.
Correct action: do not reply, do not send the PDF or the password. Report the mail to the SHO and the cyber cell through a known telephone number from the official directory, not a number given in the mail. Preserve the mail as evidence (headers, sender address, time) and keep the shared login password unchanged only if the IT cell advises so; otherwise change it at once, since the password may already be exposed.
Reasoning principle: verify the channel, not the content. A request that combines a look-alike domain, urgency and a credential is treated as phishing until verified independently.
2. How should a 25 MB PDF be sent when the mail limit is 10 MB? Compare the options.
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Options, in order of preference:
- Compress the PDF. PDF compression is lossless for the file structure, but a scanned PDF is mostly images, so the saving may be small. If the scan was made at 300 dpi, rescanning at 150 dpi often cuts the size by half without harming legibility.
- Split the file into three parts of about 8 to 9 MB each and send three numbered mails with the parts labelled 1 of 3, 2 of 3, 3 of 3.
- Upload to the official portal or the department's cloud storage and send only the link, if the cyber cell permits it.
Avoid converting pages to low-quality JPEG to fit the limit: that is lossy and can make the text unreadable for a chargesheet. Never use a personal e-mail or a messaging app for an official document. Before any compression, keep the original file untouched and work on a copy.
3. Explain the problem with the file name 'chargesheet_final.pdf.exe', and what to check about the offline printer and the beeping UPS.
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The file has a double extension. Windows hides known extensions by default, so the true type is '.exe', an executable program, while '.pdf' is only part of the name to make it look harmless. Executable files can carry malware and should not be run. Do not double-click it; scan it with the station's antivirus, and obtain a fresh scan from the original paper chargesheet. Rename properly, for example 'chargesheet_final.pdf', and keep extensions visible on the shared machine.
Printer offline: check that the printer is set as the default, that its network cable and IP address are intact, and clear any stuck jobs in the queue; then restart the print spooler. The cable being connected does not prove the network link.
UPS beeping every 30 seconds signals a battery or mains failure. Save all work immediately, close the file properly and inform the person in charge, because a sudden shutdown during a scan can corrupt the file. Power safety comes before the 6 pm deadline.