Exclusive Domains for Banks and NBFCs Will Curb Phishing
As the domains are controlled by IDRBT, chances of phishers getting a similar sounding email ids are much less.
Chennai: RBI will introduce exclusive internet domains for banks and non-banking financial institutions. By providing exclusive domains of bank.in for banks and fin.in for non-bank entities, RBI intends to curb cyberattacks and frauds in digital payments. Experts find that phishing can be curbed to a great extent by having exclusive domains.
“Increased instances of fraud in digital payments are a significant concern. To combat the same, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is introducing the 'bank.in' exclusive Internet Domain for Indian banks,” RBI said. Going forward, RBI plans to have an exclusive domain “fin.in” for other non-bank entities in the financial sector. The Institute for Development and Research in Banking’ Technology (IDRBT) will act as the exclusive registrar of the domains.
According to RBI, this initiative is aimed at reducing cyber security threats and malicious activities like phishing; and, streamlining secure financial services, thereby enhancing trust in digital banking and payment service.
According to cyber security experts, having an exclusive domain will help reduce phishing activities in which attackers send messages from similar looking email ids and cheat customers by asking them to send money or banking and transaction details.
“As the domains are controlled by IDRBT, chances of phishers getting a similar sounding email ids are much less. IDRBT also will be vigilant about such activities. Most of the older customers as well as those with limited technical knowledge fall prey to such phishing activities. Phishing accounts for almost 50 per cent of the frauds in the banking space,” said Ashish Tandon, founder and CEO of Indusface.
However, an exclusive domain will not help virus attacks, which needs to be tackled by cyber security tools.
IDRBT will commence the registrations for the domain from April.