According to a recent report, India's Banking Finance Services and Insurances (BFSI) industry is the most targeted sector for hackers and cyber criminals.
Researchers from CloudSEK, which is among the entities that provide cyber threat intelligence to Indian cyber security watchdog CERTin, said, "Our data reveals that cyberattacksagainst the BFSI sector have increased manifold. Almost 10% of the recorded cyber incidents in the financial year 2021–22 were aimed at this sector with a major paradigm shift in the most targeted region from North America to Asia, Pacific, and Europe."
The research mentioned thatIndia recorded 283 incidents in the first six months of 2022, and 469 in 2021, as per CNBC report.
Most Attacked Amongst Asian Nations
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India has been at the forefront of attacks targeted at the Asian region, with 7.4% of the targeted attacks in the year 2022being towards the Indian subcontinent. Whether it was nationalised banks, cryptocurrency exchanges or wallets, NBFCs, or credit card data leaks, India emerged as Asia's newfound hotspot for cyberattacks.
"Any threats to the banking and finance industry has a cascading effect on the overall economic development of a country. Not to mention the massive phishing campaigns that can be set in motion with exposed Personal Identifying Information (PII). These sophisticated Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) and mutated attacks are being employed to target the weakest links in the chain. A global wake-up call is the need of the hour to not be the pawn in these organized criminal activities," CloudSEK researchers said.
CloudSEK’s analysis shows that the majority of cyber incidents in 2021 and 2022 were focused differently. While 2021 targeted banking entities on a global scale and North America with equal fervor, in 2022, there was a marked shift in interest towards Asia vis a vis North America. Incidents focusing on Europe, South America and the Middle East have also reported an upsurge in 2022.
While the number of attacks on specific nations fluctuated,India, Brazil, and theUnited Statesmaintained their positions as the top five countries in the BFSI industry (in 2021 and 2022). The USA recorded twice the number of cyber incidents in the BFSI sector than any other country in both 2021 and 2022,the report mentioned.
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Why Is India Becoming Asia’s Hotbed For Cyber Attacks?
As per the report, India being the top target forcyber attacksin India can be attributed to thegrowing digitalisation and online banking systemsthat were catapulted during the pandemic.
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Digitalisation and ubiquitous banking services have accelerated the growth of threats against the banking sector. The unprecedented growth of blockchain and cryptocurrency has given threat actors unprecedented access to the sector.This, coupled with newer and evolving phishing mechanisms, has given access to targeting the banking industry with new and improved TTPs. The scattered nature of stakeholders also makes the banking and finance industry a risky proposition.
Threats to this sector can result in significant loss of consumer information and financial resources, not to mention reputational harm to the compromised firm since public awareness of their vulnerabilities is a deterrent to attracting new clients. In some cases, it can also result in data corruption and operational disruption.
Types Of Cyber Attacks
The report mentioned thatdata breaches and digital banking threats were the two major types of attackstargeting BFSI sector, with more than 50% of the reported cases, in both the years (2021 and 2022), involving the leak or sale of databases, i.e.data breach.
Also, about 20% of reported events were threats to digital banking, which mostly comprised selling, buying, compromising, and bypassing access to various digital payment systems, banking accounts, and digital wallets (crypto or otherwise). Another major threat, accounting for 15 percent of the reported instances, involved credit card-based threats, indicating threat actors' growing interest in using financial resources to handicap targets.
Malware-based cyber incidents accounted for about 18% of the total attacks recorded against this sector in 2022.Trojans, Ransomware, Botnet, and Info Stealershave been the most popular attack vectors used bycybercriminalsto target this industry. Inspired by the ease of implementation of the Business-as-a-Service (BaaS) model, cybercriminals have developed their variant known as Malware-as-a-Service (MaaS).
Due to the increased sophistication of the strategies and malware used to target this industry, it has become imperative to develop stronger and more responsive preventive measures to protect this sector from any further attacks.
What Customers Can Keep In Mind
Customers of the BFSI sector can shield themselves from cyber threats by keeping themselves informed of ongoing financial scams in the news and practising safety measures such asnever sharing OTP and ATM PINwith anyone, and not clicking on suspicious emails, messages, and links. Remember thatbanksand other financial institutions do not usually call you to extract your personal information, such as OTP, PIN, etc., so beware of fraudulent calls or other forms of communication.
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