Indian Banks Warned Of Cyber Attacks Originating From Pakistan

India's various banks are being warned by centre's cyber security that Pakistan based cyber criminals are likely to target their information infrastructure.  

Computer Emergency Response Team-India (CERT-In), the nodal agency under the Ministry of Electronics and IT, issued that alert on October seven.

The cyber-security agency is working closely with the Reserve Bank of India to strengthen financial sector security apparatus. If this biggest security breach takes place in Indian banking, it will affect over 3.2 million accounts, a senior government official was quoted as saying by The Hindu.

The agency has also mailed various banks on Thursday, including State Bank of India, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank, asking them to report details of the debit cards breach, a senior official of the IT ministry said.

CERT-In is national nodal agency for monitoring and responding to cyber security incidents. It collects analyses and disseminates information on cyber incidents. It also forecasts, issues alerts and coordinates emergency measures to cope with cyber threats.

CERT-In along with National Critical Information Infrastructure mailed to Chief Information Security Officers of the banks on October 19 (Wednesday), about increasing frauds carried out through Bank ATMs using malware and the modus operandi.

“CERT-In issued alerts to banks on August 12 and August 24, 2016, about backdoor Trojans that steals credentials of users. They were alerted on the advanced targeted attacks along with the indicators of compromise for them to take action,” the official said.

CERT-In had also issued alerts to banks on July 1, regarding cyber attacks planned on their information infrastructure.

Even RBI too had issued notification in June on Cyber Security Framework in Banks. RBI asked banks to place a a powerful cyber security policy separate from their information technology (IT) policy.