This has been one of the biggest data breaches to hit the country. Hundreds of thousands of sensitive bank transfer details have been made public due to an unsecured cloud server. The public data linked to more than 38 different banks and financial institutions. It contains sensitive information such as account numbers, transaction amounts, and people’s phone numbers.
The breach was initially brought to light by cybersecurity researchers who noted that, at the time of their report in early September, the sensitive data was still unsecured. Researchers soon noticed that the vulnerable server was still receiving thousands of new files daily. This troubling trend was a part of the larger worry that sensitive information would be misused.
Among the institutions affected, the Indian state-owned State Bank of India frequently appeared in the sample documents analyzed by experts. UpGuard, a cybersecurity company, this week sounded the alarm about a months-long and preventable threat. Before releasing the data publicly, they notified India’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In).
Jagmeet, a fellow who reports on startups and tech policy for TechCrunch Jagmeet underscored just how serious this is. He can be contacted for other questions at mail@journalistjagmeet.com. He pens a weekly cybersec newsletter, called This Week in Security. In it, he addresses many of the same themes that pervade the current tech landscape.
Ankur Dahiya, a spokesperson for the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), discussed the breach. He further distinguished their situation by noting that the exposed data didn’t originate from their systems.
“A detailed verification and review have confirmed that no data related to NACH mandate information/records from NPCI systems have been exposed/compromised,” – NPCI spokesperson Ankur Dahiya.
This incident highlights the cracks that still remain in our digital banking infrastructures. It highlights the urgent importance of protecting sensitive data hosted in cloud environments. We know technology is moving fast. All financial institutions and service providers need to ensure that they have robust security practices in place to protect consumer data.
