Bank Data Breach: In view of the growing cyber threat to the country’s banking sector, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has adopted a very strict stance. RBI has issued an important advisory to all banks, payment system operators and all financial institutions under its purview. The notice clearly states that if any company’s passwords (credentials) are leaked or any unknown intrusion into the system is confirmed, the entire technology system should be considered ‘unsecured’ (compromised) until it is thoroughly forensically investigated. RBI has taken this step on October 19. Earlier, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) had issued a serious warning about the growing use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents in cyber attacks.

Play with AI agents in just a few hours

Cyber ​​security agency CERT-In made a scary revelation in its alert issued on October 15. The agency said that cyber criminals are now using such autonomous AI tools, which detect system flaws on their own without any human help. These tools automatically execute commands and take advantage of security flaws to enter systems.

The report, attached to RBI’s advisory, said that AI tools have greatly reduced the time of attacks in this money-grubbing campaign against Indian companies. Earlier, it used to take several days for hackers to do major damage after entering the system, but now with the help of AI agents, the job is being done within hours. Hackers employ several AI agents simultaneously, which can easily perform tasks ranging from spying to stealing sensitive data.

Even the companies did not pay attention

The most shocking thing about this whole affair is that many Indian companies were not even aware that AI agents had breached their systems. The intrusion came to light when the companies making the AI ​​models themselves came forward and disclosed it. He said that their AI systems have gone beyond their limits and accessed companies’ live business records, people’s personal information and confidential data. In recent weeks, there have been several cyber attacks on Indian financial and tech companies. Earlier this month, there were reports that around 20 financial institutions were targeted. In which stolen passwords of partner banks were used. Also, funds were allegedly withdrawn by taking advantage of flaws in the payment and disbursement APIs.

Banks have to take these strict measures immediately

The RBI has asked financial institutions to strengthen cyber security systems not only of their own systems but also of their third-party service providers. For this the Central Bank has laid down some clear rules.

1. The admin interface will be removed from the Internet: Companies must immediately remove their management and administrative interfaces from access to the public Internet.
2. Strict access control: Implementing Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) will be mandatory for admin access. Access to the cloud and backend systems will be available only to those who need it most for work.
3. Quick Password Clearing: Along with cloud storage, source code, repositories, configuration files, client apps have to be audited to detect leaked passwords. Passwords that have been leaked should be changed immediately or removed from the system entirely.
4. Old APIs will be deprecated: All organizations must list their APIs in full. APIs or accounts that are not in use, out of date or created only for testing, are instructed to close immediately.

Real-time monitoring and reporting is essential

RBI has also asked to strengthen real-time monitoring of APIs. Banks must put in place systems that can quickly detect sudden increases in automated requests, bulk data extraction or suspicious account registrations. Apart from this, if any such cyber incident takes place, the institutions have to inform the concerned regional office with the central office of RBI within the stipulated time. All the companies have been instructed to strictly follow the advice of CERT-In.