In the new age of finance when everything is moving towards a digital platform, cyber-crime has become one important concern for each and every individual. With people becoming dependent on cloud services to connect every other device, the data is far more easily accessible than before. This could also cause a national security threat if certain sensitive data related to a country falls into wrong hands. It can be taken advantage of and could even lead to war and the destruction of the entire country, breaking its entire financial backbone. As all the data is available online, special cyber-crime units called “CERT-Fin”, have been set up to reduce the crime and punish the guilty. In 2020, NASSCOM reported that India would need 1 million cyber-security professionals and there has already been a hike of 150% in the cyber security roles between January 2017 and March 2018.
During the pandemic where the entire world shifted to online transactions, the cyber security market has seen a boom. In India, cyber security products and services have grown from $5.04 billion in 2019 to 9.85 billion in 2021 according to DSCI (Data Security Council of India).
Since the data breach could lead to a lot of frauds as already seen in 2016 wherein $3.2 million debit cards used in India were stolen. A technological glitch in all the information of one person could be sent to any person as all the bank details are linked to Aadhar and the entire identity of a person can be stolen. This vital information not only financial but personal information would be accessible to Fintech companies as the cyber security products would contain this information, making it important to check the ethical standpoint of the companies and their privacy and customer protection policies.
RBI has taken up an initiative to protect the citizens from any further hackings. For banks RBI has laid down guidelines to be followed and advice to be considered to tackle the issue. To spread the awareness among the employees and the board of management awareness/certification programs have been set up and training is imparted by an RBI-approved institution. India directed its banks to form security policies to deal with cyber threats as well as to include “cyber hygiene” which is a set of habitual actions taken to protect critical data and provide secured networks to the users. RBI also appointed its first Information Security Officer and has formalized a sectoral interface called Indian Banks-Center for Analysis of Risks and Threat (IB-CART). India has jumped 37 positions to reach the 10th position in the United Nations global cyber security index by spreading awareness and taking relevant measures to decrease cyber-crimes.
But are these measures enough? Though RBI took proactive steps to save the country from cyber threats and formed a framework to save guard the financial sectors, regular and strict audits and checks is required to ensure compliance with the framework. No country or company has been able to save itself from cyber-attacks. In 2020 Twitter breach targeted 130 accounts and a loss of $121,000 bitcoins by 300 transactions, a cyber-attack was reported by Marriot in which 5.2 million hotel guests’ data were disclosed due to a security breach and there are many more. In India alone, 11.5 lakh incidents of cyber-attacks have been tracked and reported in 2021. According to ransomware, there has been an increase of 120% in cybercrime in India. With the introduction of the “digital rupee”, the threat has increased which could lead to many macroeconomic problems, including the distrust of the currency and the fluctuation in the foreign exchange market. The access to important data on replication of the “digital rupee” would pose threat to the Indian economy and its foreign investments, GDP may take a negative turn. This would have an everlasting and irreversible impact.
India has a long journey ahead and needs to work to take more measures towards cyber security. This is why a course called ethical hacking has been introduced which would teach students how to mitigate the threat and thus provide excellent professionals for the country to help resolve the problem. It trains professionals to understand and reach the bottom of cyber-crime and provide secured networks to banks, the government, and the entire financial system.
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