Demonetisation: Digital India could be under threat from cyber attacks

Mumbai: The spread of Digital India could be under threat from cyber attacks unless the government and people change their approach towards cyber security. E-wallets for instance are under constant threat from cyber criminals as they allow sending and receiving money (up to a limit) without any owner proofing. So attackers/fraudsters frequently use these wallets as an escape route for the stolen money.

Later, this money can be cashed with exchange agents which return physical money for the digital one making all this nearly untraceable as the only way to link the fraud to a person is the phone number and it is not a big secret that obtaining a SIM card with a fraudulent ID/Address proof isn’t very difficult these days, according to BugsBounty.com, which has India’s largest community ethical hackers at 10,000.

It expects to have up to 40,000 by the end of 2017. It is also the 4th ever platform in the world that allows an organisation public or private to host SaaS based bugs bounty programmes.

“Without a paradigm shift in the approach undertaken by organisations, both private and public’, it will be difficult to realise the true potential of Digital India,” said Ankush Johar, director, BugsBounty.com. In 2016 alone over 2,000 ATMs are likely to have been hacked and over 60 lakh debit and credit cards were potentially made vulnerable/hackable and over 40 lakh e-wallets are likely to have been vulnerable/potentially hacked (though for smaller amounts).