More than 39,000 cyber security breach incidents were reported in the first ten months of 2016, according to a report by Price Water House Coopers and Assocham. The number is quite high compared to 44,679 and 49,455 such incidents in entire 2014 and 2015 respectively. These numbers have been reported by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).
Dr Ajeet Bajpai, Director General, National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NTRO) said that post demonetisation banking and financial sector has become the most critical. He also said that cyber threats were of nuisance value earlier, but now they are disruptive and may become destructive.
More intelligent transaction monitoring will have to be carried out as part of continuous surveillance. Crisis response and recovery strategies will have to be stepped up along with the increased digital footprint. Security awareness of all stake holders will be a vital pillar of a secure cashless society, adds the study.
In the new cashless world, frauds will be driven mainly by impersonation and will become a daily affair. Accordingly, the need for stronger authentication of transactions will gain significance. The current techniques of authentication based on location and timing will no longer be adequate. Adaptive authentication will need to be embedded into the heart of transaction processing.
As the country is experiencing a digital revolution, the impact of this transformation makes it imperative for financial service players to revisit their cyber security resilience. The number of incidents occurring in banking systems has increased in the last five years. In the month of October 2016, an ATM card hack hit Indian banks, affecting around 3.2 million debit cards. Hence, efforts are needed to enhance cyber security as businesses and citizens embrace this new digital wave, noted the study.
