Protecting against cyberattacks: The cost is too high to ignore

When the recent Elon Musk-Donald Trump parley on platform X – already termed as the ‘interview of the century’ - was marred by technical glitches which Musk himself described as a massive DDoS attack, seldom one could believe the power of co-ordinated cyberattacks – that too on a platform known for its tech invincibility and on a man, known for his tech prowess.

Away from the arc lights, world-wide, companies are facing relentless cyberattacks often bordering corporate espionage and ransom acts, with an average of 1,636 attacks per organisation, per week. According to experts, Indian businesses are facing over 3,000 cyberattacks per week, second only to Taiwan companies in Asia-Pacific region, with attackers demonstrating extreme sophistication and diversity of tools. A report from Check Point Research says this is a 46% year-over-year increase, compared to 30% witnessed globally.

Now, within this, banks, NBFCs and other financial institutions are specific targets given India’s vast digital network and the significant contribution of the same in the lives of common people for financial, credit and investment inclusion aspects. From the 2018’s devastating attack on Pune’s Cosmos Cooperative Bank - which resulted in a massive financial breach and losses - to Aadhar data breaches - that exposed a huge database to theft and fraud - our country faces the constant risk of being attacked online every moment and data stolen.

Our “Digital India’ project – the numero uno effort in digital space around the world – is the cynosure of all eyes. On its part, the Govt of India continues to fortify our digital infrastructure through agencies like CERT-In, Cyber Surakshit Bharat initiative and Cyber Swachhta Kendra to clean up computers and devices, coordinated under the umbrella of the National Cyber Security Policy 2020.

However, a part of the onus also falls on individuals like us to protect ourselves from harm because unlike in the past, the average cost of a data breach is now being pegged at ?19.5 crore – up 39% - by IBM in a report. The cost of lost business due to operational downtime, lost customers, and reputation damage has gone up by 45%. So far, the industrial sector remains the most hit, followed by technology and the pharmaceutical sectors. But the financial services would not be far behind, going by its significance.

Thus, a technologically advanced lender like us has a major role to protect not only the customer liabilities but also their trust and sustained faith in us as a valuable entity in their lives. While we are taking constant efforts such as fraud monitoring and detection, usage of multi-factor authentications as suggested by the regulator, securing online channels, conducting regular security audits to fix any vulnerabilities and giving out timely fraud alerts, customers should also follow basics like constantly monitoring their accounts and engaging with authorised representatives, not sharing passwords and OTPs, avoiding clicking on SPAMs, fraudulent links and phishing links and subscribing to alerts among other measures. They must also update the software on the devices that are used to access the accounts.

As they say, protecting ourselves and feeling secure must be part of your culture; no one is cyber safe in a closely connected world. Our safety is entirely is in our hands.