Indian Banks Preparedness For Cyber Attacks is Inadequate: Experts

Indian banks were today questioned by Cybersecurity experts about the possible security breach involving funds, stressing that state-of-the-art security systems are the need of the hour. Very recently, hackers ran away with a whopping Rs 94.42 crore from the Pune-headquartered Cosmos Cooperative Bank Limited, which is the second oldest and second biggest cooperative bank in the country to foreign and domestic bank accounts.

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According to Nikhil Bedi, Partner, Deloitte India, robust security systems and incidence response capabilities are imperative for all companies and financial institutions that are custodians of customer data and customer assets, including funds.

“While there is growing awareness to regularly update an organisation’s cyber preparedness and defence mechanisms, a large number of institutions wake up to this reality only post an incident which often leads to a loss of reputation and/or financial misappropriation,” Bedi said in a statement.

In 2016, a malware-related security breach was reportedly detected in the non-SBI ATM network, following which the public sector lender blocked around six lakh debit cards.

An estimated 30 lakh-plus debit cards issued by various public or private banks were exposed to a potential risk of data breach.

Cyber attacks today are multi-pronged and can start with malware being downloaded into a system or via a web application being hacked.

“This is a big challenge especially for banks, where it is no longer sufficient to protect just your data centres and your headquarters, you have to protect ATMs and branch offices in addition to securing incoming data even from affiliated organisations,” cautioned Anshuman Singh, Senior Director, Product Management at Barracuda Networks Inc.