Banks told to spend more on enhancing Cyber Security

 Upon the request of the Hyderabad City Police , the Reserve Bank of India convened a meeting of all 51 Urban Cooperative and other Banks functioning in Telangana to discuss CyberSecurity measures following the recent hacking case of Mahesh Urban Cooperative Bank on January 24th this year in which 12.48 crores was hacked . It was a meeting to educate and enlighten the banking community about the dangers due to online banking.

Explaining in detail how the hacking took place in Mahesh through phishing mails, trojans and key logger software to enter the database of the bank and the extensive 2 month long investigation in which 23 accused included 4 Handler Nigerians (called Mules ) were caught and 3  crores recovered ,Mr CV Anand stressed upon the need to put in place sufficient cyber security measures by all banks .

 He explained the lapses committed by Mahesh bank management and the lack of focus and will to spend sufficient budgets to deploy firewalls, intrusion prevention and detection systems, anti phishing systems, segregated system networks and Virtual LANS, and avoiding usage of common user ID s and passwords. 

He explained that this is a crime because Banks are dealing with public money , earning profits and it’s their duty to safeguard it while offering internet and online banking services and the criminal liability will be with that bank as it’s a criminal breach of trust.He appealed to the RBI chief general manager from the Mumbai headquarters Mr Rajan and the Regional Director of RBI Telangana Smt Nikhila to tighten enforcement and take punitive measures to bring such banks under control before hundreds of crores more are lost by hacking.

Across the globe there is increase in the severity, frequency,  and sophistication of cyber attacks, and the  banks spending on the human, network and application layers of cyber security is not matching the risk levels.

“Banks must rev up efforts to combat the growing cyber threat. A series of Cyber drills are necessary, and banks,regulators should be part of such exercises to smoke out vulnerabilities and to keep their first responders sharp.” The RBI top officials responded by saying that they are in the process of improving cyber security throughout the country and certain limitations regarding them.

The session was attended by Sri.A.R.Srinivas IPS, Additional Commissioner of Police, (SIT and Crimes), Sri.Gajarao Bhupal IPS Jt.Commissioner of Police, Detective department, Smt.Nikhila Regional Director, RBI, Hyderabad and Sri.Rajan CGM, RBI and other officials from RBI, NABARD and 51 Co-operative Urban Banks.