SISA confirmed the malware captured both the debit card number and PIN of customers who used their cards at the affected ATMs. However, financial losses were contained because the card issuing banks blocked cards and advised some customers to change their debit card PIN.
Yes Bank declined to comment in the matter.
“The reason why such cyber attacks are happening today is because of the ineffective implementation of the payment security standards. Organizations need to pay a lot more emphasis to this than they currently do. It’s not the check-the-box approach which has been traditionally followed,” Dharshan Shanthamurthy, founder and CEO of SISA, said.
“This happened to be one such incident. With demonetization, and with an increase in the number of digital payments, such attacks are going to get worse,” he warned.
Hitachi said it has enhanced its infrastructure to prevent such frauds in the future, but concerns remain about the cyber security preparedness of the banking system.
RBI deputy governor S.S. Mundra in a 1 February speech had pointed to the need to continuously guard against such malware attacks and also report such incidents on a real-time basis.
The Hitachi breach was first detected after few banks raised an alarm over the fraudulent use of their customers’ cards in China and the US, while these customers were in India.
