Hyderabad: Take adequate cyber security measures, CP CV Anand tells city banks

Hyderabad: City Police Commissioner CV Anand on Thursday held a meeting with banks to discuss the growing menace of cybercrime. The meeting, held at the commissioners office, was convened by the Reserve Bank of India. A total of 51 urban cooperative and other banks functioning in Telangana attended the meeting. It discussed cyber security measures following the recent hacking case of Mahesh Urban Cooperative Bank on January 24 this year in which Rs 12.48 crore was hacked.

Anand said later "it was a meeting to educate and enlighten the banking community about the dangers due to online banking. We explained in detail to bankers as to how the hacking took place in Mahesh Bank through phishing mails, trojans and key logger software to enter the database of the bank and the extensive two-month-long investigation following which 23 accused, included 4 Handler Nigerians (called Mules ), were caught and Rs 3 crore recovered."

The CP stressed on need to put in place sufficient cyber security measures by all banks. He explained the lapses committed by Mahesh Bank management and lack of focus and will to spend sufficient budget to deploy firewalls, intrusion prevention and detection systems, anti- phishing systems, segregated system networks and Virtual LANS, and avoiding usage of common user IDs 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. The criminal liability will be with the bank as it's a criminal breach of trust."

The officer also appealed to the RBI Chief General Manager, Mumbai headquarters Rajan, and Regional Director of RBI, Telangana, Nikhila to tighten enforcement and take punitive measures to bring such banks under control before hundreds of crore more are lost to hacking. "Across the globe there is an increase in the severity, frequency and sophistication of cyber-attacks. The banks' spending on the human, network and application layers of cyber security is not matching the risk levels," he said.

Anand stated that "Banks must put in more efforts to combat the growing cyber threat. A series of Cyber drills are necessary; 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.