What steps are you taking to beef up online security?
We are strengthening our Computer Emergency Response Team by augmenting the number of staff and putting in place more advanced tools. And, we are collaborating with every global computer emergency response team to see whether there are any areas where pre-emptive action can be taken. We have also asked all departments and agencies to designate chief information security officer as distinct from the IT officers and given them detailed protocols on what they should be following. Mobile wallet providers do need to do more in terms of security. We are planning to issue a detailed advisory on that.
How are you creating awareness?
The problem with cyber security is that all this is new. So, people are also not as careful as they should be. For example, there was one statistic that said nearly 76 per cent of people have not changed their passwords in three years. It’s a long period. So, all this makes them vulnerable. We are coming up with a massive programme of consumer awareness. We have taken it up with social media platforms to make sure that they are also secure.
We are also coming up with a free app that you, as a customer, can download either on your device or on your mobile. It will help in cleaning up your malware. We are working with C-DAC, and it will be launched shortly.
Are you working with banks and private players for digital transactions?
We are working with banks to streamline their technology. We had first meeting with the banks last week where we have asked them to augment back-end infrastructure. We have another meeting coming up. There also needs to be a legal framework for digital payments, which we are working on. We have just set up a committee for the legal framework. When the IT act was framed, cashless payments were not envisaged in this manner. Sensitivity of financial data, data security, data privacy as well as the legal liability and accountability are some of things we are looking at.
There are lot of technical glitches in UPI and USSD as of now. The new generation application that we expect to launch is going to be hitch-free. We are also trying to work with other technology providers to see how more USSD and NFC based technologies can be popularised, so that digital payments can be much simpler. So, we are working on a technology wherein through a voice channel you can transfer funds from one to another on a simple USSD-based phone. It is activated by voice. There is another technology wherein you just place a chip on your feature phone and it allows you to do phone-to-phone transfer. Digital payments will pick up once simpler technologies come up.
These are all private sector people we have collaborated with except for aadhar which is our own.
There are reports that the number of hacking attempts has gone up.
Some high-profile hacking attempts have happened. But, when we looked at the pattern in CERT-IN, there is nothing alarming. It is not as if there is a sudden spike.
Your ministry has made a lot of announcements to promote the cashless movement. What more are we going to see?
First, we launched a television channel [DigiShala] to provide content, which is now reaching about 2.5 crore people. Second, we have created a website where all the information regarding digital payments is being put up. Third, through the Common Service Centres, we have launched a massive programme to train people on cashless transactions—one million people have been trained so far. And, about 8,000 merchants have been enrolled into digital payments.
