As India embraces a cashless economy, there has been a sudden spurt in new mobile wallet companies — but most of these start-ups are setting up digital shops without knowing the cyber risks involved, a top executive from US-based cyber security firm FireEye has emphasised.<\/p>\n
This is a dangerous trend when the country still lacks proper infrastructure and legislation to fight against cyber criminals.<\/p>\n
“While India is rapidly embracing a cashless consumer economy, payment technologies are growing in adoption faster than awareness of the risks involved,” Vishak Raman, Senior Regional Director for India and SAARC, told IANS.<\/p>\n
“Many of these are running as startups without sufficient attention to security. The rapid shift to digital transactions will greatly increase our collective exposure to cyber security threats — essentially fraud and theft,” Raman added.<\/p>\n
In a first, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday registered a complaint against 15 people for allegedly claiming fraudulent refunds worth Rs6.15 lakh from the leading payment gateway Paytm.<\/p>\n
A Paytm spokesperson, however, said in a statement that the platform has robust risk management practices but the case has brought the risks to the fore.<\/p>\n
According to Raman, in the absence of data breach notification laws and the mandate to publicly disclose attacks, Indian enterprises often do not know how vulnerable they are.<\/p>\n
“This creates a false sense of security among CISOs\/CIOs that their traditional defences are working fine and that they are immune from advanced attacks organisations elsewhere are facing,” Raman noted.<\/p>\n
Paytm registered over seven million transactions worth Rs 1.2 billion in a day after the demonetisation drive began on November 8.<\/p>\n
Another mobile wallet major, MobiKwik, which launched MobiKwik ‘Lite’ late last month, registered over two million downloads within the first two days of the ‘Lite’ offer.<\/p>\n
Global payment solutions provider PayU has also observed a hike in average daily transactions from Rs1.2 million to Rs2.5 million post-demonetisation.<\/p>\n
This is how hackers can attack your money in e-wallets: Create multiple fake accounts to collect money in small amounts; cheat people who are digital novices by psychological manipulation; and breach servers and steal data.<\/p>\n
Even though most Indian organisations lack effective defences against ransomware, as threats become more pervasive and frequent in India, organisations are slowly becoming aware about the need for advanced protection.<\/p>\n
“However, it takes a combination of technology, intelligence and expertise to effectively prevent, detect and respond to attacks,” Raman told IANS.<\/p>\n
When asked where India stands when it comes to vulnerability in 2017, Raman said firms in Asia and particularly in India often struggle to discover that they have been breached.<\/p>\n
For example, “the median time between compromise and the discovery of an attack was 520 days in Asia Pacific, compared with 146 days globally. That is a massive difference,” Raman contended.<\/p>\n
In 2016, India faced a wave of cyber security incidents, ranging from targeted attacks on government organisations to ATM malware attacks.<\/p>\n
“When coupled with its ill-preparedness to combat potential risks associated with cashless transactions and pushing hundreds of millions of citizens’ private information into the digital space, India stands quite vulnerable,” the FireEye executive cautioned.<\/p>\n
The sophisticated, financially-motivated espionage actor groups focusing on critical systems and maturing businesses will be prevalent in 2017 as these enterprises are often vulnerable to compromise.<\/p>\n
IANS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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