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Security of 3.2 million debit cards compromised, forensic probe ordered: Report

A forensic probe has been ordered as the security codes of as many as 3.2 million debit cards on various platforms have been platform reportedly compromised.

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A forensic probe has been ordered after security codes of as many as 3.2 million debit cards on various platforms were reportedly compromised. According to Economic Times,  several victims have reported unauthorised usage from locations in China and the card holders are being asked by the banks to change their security codes.

The report says that the State Bank of India (SBI), HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, YES Bank and Axis Bank are among the worst hit. Of the cards affected, 600,000 cards belong to the RuPay platform while 2.6 million are believed to be on the Visa and Master-Card platform 

The breach is said to have resulted from malware introduced in systems of Hitachi Payment Services, the report added. “Though most of the suspected fraudulent transactions happened in the Visa and MasterCard network, we thought a whole a forensic audit of the entire network will help us find out where the compromise happened," NPCI Managing Director AP Hota told the daily.

A forensic audit has been ordered by the Payments Council of India to detect the origin of frauds on Indian bank servers and systems.

Banks have also asked their customers to change the Debit Card PIN immediately. "Dear Customer, due to security reasons, we request you to change your Debit Card PIN immediately at the nearest ICICI Bank ATM, through iMobile or through Net Banking. For details, please call Customer Care at 022-33667777," reads a message sent by ICICI Bank.

On Wednesday, Axis Bank said that the malware attack was detected in time and was duly informed to RBI. In a statement, the bank said that its internal monitoring mechanism identified such a threat recently and all steps have been undertaken to neutralise the same.

SBI and its subsidiary banks blocked about 6 lakh debit cards due to a malware-related security breach as part of precautionary measures after being informed of potential risks to those cards. In July, state-owned Union Bank of India was also hit by cyber attack but successfully averted the theft from USD Nostro account. Union Bank went for a cyber security forensic audit to identify and plug gaps, if any.

Last month, in a meeting with head of public sector banks, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley discussed issues related with cyber security and measures to strengthening cyber security. With instances of cyber attack rising, the Reserve Bank also in its bi-monthly policy said it has decided to increase its supervisory coverage on IT risks for banks with an aim to eventually cover all the lenders.

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