Government prepared for cyber attack, foils hacking attempt

Company’s core systems and accounts are not the only things that are prone to hacking; the complete government system is also facing the threat of cyber security. According to Kaspersky Lab’s IT Security Risks 2016 survey, nearly 42% of SMBs fell victim to ransomware in the last 12 months. 34% of these paid the ransom and one in five weren’t able to recover their data, even after the demands of cybercriminals were met. And considering the recent cyber security reports, India seems to be one of the favorite targets of hackers.

The number of cyber security cases has been constantly on the rise over the past 3 years. India witnessed registration of 5693 cyber security-related cases in 2013, 9622 in 2014 and 11,592 in 2015. And in all probability, the number of hacking attempts will only increase with time.

According to Symantec cyber security reports, India emerged as the second ‘Most Favoured’ Destination for ransomware and was sixth most cyber-attacked country in Asia.

In a recent question-answer session in Lok Sabha, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley revealed information about the latest attempt by hackers to hack the system of a public sector bank. However, the attack was prevented by the government with timely action.

He said that RBI and other banks have taken required security measures after these hacking attempts. "Technology firewalls are created to check hacking. If the financial system is hacked, then there is a threat to the entire banking network," said Jaitley.

This latest success of the government in avoiding a hacker attack on PSU bank seems to be positive news in that aspect.