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  India   Data breach: Govt seeks report from banks, asks citizens 'not to panic'

Data breach: Govt seeks report from banks, asks citizens 'not to panic'

AGE CORRESPONDENT WITH AGENCY INPUTS
Published : Oct 21, 2016, 3:36 pm IST
Updated : Oct 21, 2016, 3:36 pm IST

The government has asked RBI and banks for a detailed report on banks' preparedness to deal with cyber crimes.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley
 Finance Minister Arun Jaitley

The government has asked RBI and banks for a detailed report on banks' preparedness to deal with cyber crimes

. As panic gripped millions of Indians over feared security breach that affected over 32 lakh cards, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said that the government had sought report on debit card misuse and said that the “idea is to contain damage”.

Promising swift action on the debit card data compromise issue, Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das on Friday said there is no need to panic over the feared security breach that affected over 32 lakh cards.

The government, Das confirmed, has sought a detailed inquiry report into the issue and appropriate action will be taken once it is received.

"Customers should not panic because these hackings are done through computer and trail can easily be reached... they should not be alarmed. Whatever action has to be taken, it will be done with speed," Das said on the sidelines of a German government event here.

In the biggest-ever security breach affecting the Indian banking sector, 32 lakh debit cards of various public and private sector banks are feared to have been 'compromised' by cyber malware attack in some ATM systems.

SBI is said to have recalled around 6 lakh cards while others like Bank of Baroda, IDBI Bank, Central Bank and Andhra Bank have replaced debit cards of several customers as a pre-emptive measure.

Among private sector players, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Yes Bank have asked customers to change their ATM PINs. HDFC Bank also advised its customers to use its own ATMs for carrying out any transaction.

Fraudulent withdrawals have been reported from 19 banks so far while complaints have been received from a few banks that their customers' cards were used fraudulently abroad, mainly in China and the US while the customers were in India.

Yesterday, department of financial services Additional Secretary G C Murmu said only about 0.5 per cent of the total debit card details were compromised while the remaining 99.5 per cent cards are completely safe and bank customers should not panic.

There are around 60 crore debit cards operational in India, of which 19 crore are indigenously developed by RuPay while the rest are Visa- and Master Card-enabled.

"Since the data compromise took place from specific machines within a particular time period, it is just a limited issue and banks have asked their affected customers to replace their card or change their PIN," Murmu had said, adding that other cards are not affected at all.

The umbrella body of all retail payments system in India – the National Payments Corporation of India – yesterday said all affected banks have been alerted by card networks.

Of the 32 lakh cards affected due to the malware function, 6,00,000 were RuPay enabled ones.

Complaints of fraudulent withdrawals have come from 641 customers and the total amount involved is Rs 1.3 crore as reported by various affected banks, NPCI said in a statement.

(This story first appeared in Deccan Chronicle)