Mastercard faces 60,000 hack attempts

HYDERABAD: India has a certain amount of catching up to do when it comes to cyber security. This is mainly because there is no sharing of information within government departments, IT companies and academia. In the digital era, sharing of information has become a lot easier compared to a few decades ago, but government departments are still found wanting in this regard.

Rudra Murthy, chief information security officer, Digital India, in the Union ministry of home affairs, says that neither the bureaucracy nor the official machinery shares information, though this is crucial to mitigate the risk of hacking and cyber attacks. Citizens are more savvy about cyber security than government officials, he said, during the inaugural session of Cyber Security Conclave held at HICC.

Telangana IT secretary Jayesh Ranjan also spoke on this subject. Ajaypal Banga, CEO, Mastercard, highlighted the lack of information sharing among Indians when the Telangana IT delegation met him in the US earlier. “We were told that Mastercard faces hacking attempts per day of upto nearly 30,000, and it goes up to 60,000 occasionally,” said Mr Ranjan.

“Mastercard’s CEO said very little is being done in India to face cyber security. How crucial it would be if an affected company shares the IP address of the attacker with others so that the rest of the industry would be guarded. Also the legal framework needs to be looked into,” he said. Bharani K. Aroll, secretary of the Society for Cyberabad Security Council said that the IT industry in Hyderabad has started to share information about tools and methodologies of cyber security.