India: Third Most Affected Nation By Online Banking Malware

Growing Internet penetration and rising popularity of online banking have made India a favorite among cyber criminals, who target online financial transactions using malware, security solutions provider Trend Micro said. According to the firm, India ranks third after Japan and the US in the tally of countries most affected by online banking malware during the April-June quarter of 2014.

Japan topped the list with the highest number of online banking malware infections this quarter due to VAWTRAK. In May alone, it saw 13,000 malware infections. The US saw about 5,000 malware infections during the month, followed by India at 3,000 attacks.

"India posed for cyber criminal expansion with an average of 2.5 million malware detection in a given month. Also, 33 per cent more malicious apps were downloaded and network traffic from affected computers continued to rise," TrendLabs Director Myla V Pilao told PTI. TrendLabs is Trend Micro's research and development center. These and many such incidents show that cyber criminals will always adapt to new trends and situations whether in the use of new malware or targeted attacks techniques to continue their attacks, she added. 

She said the severity of attacks has intensified against financial and banking institutions as well as retail outlets globally.

"Total attacks have exposed more than 10 million personal records as of July 2014 and that strongly indicates that organisations need to adopt a more strategic approach to safeguarding digital information," she said. Such incidents often lead  to stealing of consumer's personal information like customer names, passwords, email addresses, home addresses, phone numbers, and date of birth.

These types of personal privacy breaches have affected organisation's sales and earnings, while leaving customers unable to access accounts and dealing with service disruption, Pilao said. "The pace of change in technology sector has never been as rapid as it is now, and as a result we see firms struggling to keep up with the latest developments," she said. Pilao added that it is essential that Indian businesses treat information security as a principal constituent of business  strategy as time and again it has emerged as one of the top countries witnessing cyber crime. 

"The incidents observed during this quarter further establish the need for a more comprehensive approach to security," TrendLabs Director Myla V Pilao said. 

A report by another security solutions firm McAfee said India is the fourth most affected country in Asia, with 786 phishing domains and 1,557 servers hosting suspect content. Also with 145 spamming domains originate from India, the country is the eighth most affected country in the Asia Pacific region.

According to government's cyber security arm Computer Emergency Response Team-India (CERT-In), 62,189 cyber security incidents were reported in the first five months of the current calendar year. Also, till May this year, 9,174 Indian websites were hijacked by various hacker groups spread across the world.

Learn about identity theft at www.cibilconsultants.com

Source: Secondary

Ways to Avoid Online Identity Theft

In today's cyber world, where most of your personal information is online, it's easy for fraudsters to steal and misuse it. Here's a look at the way they can trick you and what you can do to protect yourself.

How your identity can be stolen?

SHOULDER SURFING

As the name suggests, it's simply someone looking over your shoulder or using a mobile phone to click a photo while you are using your credit card, keying in your PIN at an ATM, filling up important information in a form or cheque, or just typing your password.

WIRELESS IDENTITY THEFT

Also known as RFID (radio frequency identification) theft, it steals the personal information that is stored on cards with RF chips embedded in them, such as your office ID tags.

PHARMING

A domain is hijacked by a criminal, who then steals the data of any user who accesses the website.

MALWARE

It stands for malicious software and includes anything that can be used to gain access to your PC and steal data from it. This could be through spyware, keyloggers, Trojan horse, adware, worm or virus. It disguises itself as something innocuous and stays hidden in your PC.

PHISHING

An e-mail from a seemingly reliable and known source will direct you to a phony website that looks legitimate. It will ask you to input personal data and finances to access the site, and then steal that information.

VISHING

A fraudster pretends to call up from your bank or service provider claiming to need your personal details because they are upgrading you or updating data.

SKIMMING

The secret information in the magnetic strip of your credit/debit card is copied and then used on a counterfeit card.

SMISHING

You will receive a text message on your mobile phone informing you of a service that you have signed up for or stopped. If you click on the link provided or call the number given, you will be told that you can proceed only after providing essential information.

How to protect yourself?

Here are 8 ways to be vigilant and safeguard your identity.

TEAR IT UP

Scrutinize all correspondence from financial institutions and shred it . Ensure all such e-mails are protected by passwords. Tear your ATM slips and cancelled cheques, don't just crumple them when you throw them in the trash.

WIPE EVERYTHING

Before disposing of your old gadgets, completely wipe out the memory or any data on it. Even an SMS or mail from your bank can be misused. Remove sensitive data before lending your phone, laptop or pen drives.

CALL BACK

Don't give out personal details no matter who calls you up. Log in to the website or call the customer care yourself. Bookmark websites used often so that you can access them directly rather than through a 'phishy' e-mail.

VIRTUAL PASSWORDS

Use virtual keyboards to input your passwords. Change these frequently and use different ones for various websites. Hackers access online forums or blogs to hack passwords because people usually use the same passwords for everything.

Source: Secondary