Milpitas-based Cyber Security Company FireEye has warned Indian government of a possible cyber attack on bank ATMs across India in 2017. The company has also listed the Indian subcontinent in the top list of underdeveloped nations which are vulnerable to ATM attacks due to the usage of the dead Microsoft Windows XP operating system.
In the 2017 Security Landscape Asia Pacific Edition report of FireEye, India is said to be the number one target of cyber criminals in the upcoming year. As the Indian Government has demonetized big currency and as the public is forced to withdraw money from ATMs for all their financial needs, FireEye claims that cyber crooks will have a good field day in upcoming months.
Very recently, some of the top banks operating in India like SBI, ICICI, Axis bank and YesBank reported that several of their bank customers lost their money to malware related security breach in the ATM network. As a result of this breach, the banks had to block nearly 600,000 debit cards.
Now the rush near ATMs has doubled and tripled due to the demonetization scheme presented by Indian Government. So, cyber crooks may be using some kind of payment card counterfeiting tools to siphon money from user accounts.
The FireEye report also included some details regarding investments in security that SMBs will make in 2017. It confirmed that companies will be more interested in making significant investments in the form of orchestration and automation in the upcoming year.
The Cyber Security and Malware Protection Company said that proliferation of Internet of Things has boosted the confidence of cyber crooks to many folds in recent times. Thus, they are always on a hunt for new opportunities which help in abusing connectivity and cause disruption on a bigger scale.
As Indian ATM attacks made on a digital note will pay well to hackers, they will surely try to exploit banks and big financial institutions from India in coming year.
Hope, the Indian Government makes a note of this alert and takes up proactive measures.
