Banks told to stay vigilant amid intel on cyberattack threat
Banks across the country have been put on alert amid tip-offs received by the regulator on possible cyberattacks.
They have been told to proactively monitor their systems for threat detection on a 24/7 basis.
«In the light of credible threat intelligence received regarding potential cyberattacks, regulated entities are advised to put in place enhanced state of surveillance and resilience capabilities to guard against these threats,» said an advisory issued by the Reserve Bank of India to financial institutions on June 24.
Interestingly, the RBI communique came a few days before a social media post on Monday that LulzSec, a group linked to several high-profile attacks, was training its guns on Indian banks.
Similar alert by CERT-In issued last year
Widely believed to have gone dormant, the group was said to have turned active again.
Apart from continuously checking network activities and server logs to detect malicious intrusions, banks will have to monitor critical payment systems such as SWIFT (the messaging system to confirm cross-border fund transfers), card network (which facilitates card payments), the online local fund transfer frameworks RTGS, NEFT and UPI, the real-time payment system.
Banks have been reminded to put standard controls against threats like DDoS (distributed denial of service). In a DDoS strike, hackers can launch a multi-pronged attack to inundate a bank's systems with a large number of queries which make it difficult for the website and online services to process genuine customer
