Time For Indian BFSI To Wake Up To Harsh Cyber Realities

CIOs in BFSI sector are under constant pressure to live up to technology expectations, but with new deployments come new vulnerabilities. With over 130000 reported cases of cyber fraud involving an estimated Rs. 700 Crore faced by banks in India in the last decade, the sector is still far from a concrete framework and in need of a rapid security transformation.

- Chitresh Sehgal 

Faster transactions, bigger ATM networks, online banking services and global collaboration in the banking sector through IT has seen services reach out to a never before number of people all around the world. In India today, there have been massive drives to open bank accounts and push to online banking and mobile banking has been on an all-time high. Although IT and digital transformation has enabled banking and financial services organizations to reach out to a large customer base with improved efficiency and a greater umbrella of services, the enhanced experience comes at a cost.

Brick and mortar Bank robberies are quickly becoming a thing of the past, and in today’s heavily digitized sector, the threat comes from the cyber attackers sitting in unknown locations, breaching networks and siphoning money anonymously without leaving a trace or in some cases without even alerting the victim organization. Such is the precision of banking fraud in the cyber landscape that most breaches are not reported or even discovered for a long after they have occurred.

The BFSI sector is vital for a growing economy and more or less is synonymous with the growth trajectory of the country. Frauds and breaches in BFSI organizations have devastating effects and these spread across sectors to the account holders as well as organizations connected with the bank financially. The growing cyber threat landscape in BFSI has been an ongoing headache for security teams in such organizations.

A History of Breach in Indian BFSI