Hyderabad: Telangana state now has the dubious distinction of being the third most vulnerable state for new and upcoming malware attacks created to infiltrate and steal information from ATM and other card data, with a high concentration of that vulnerability in Hyderabad.
The study of malware samples were detected in 18 states in India, where 24 per cent were found in Maharashtra, followed by Karnataka (18.5 per cent) and Telangana state (12 per cent). Other vulnerable states include West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Kerala.
According to cyber and security experts, high risks to Indian plastic money users emerged a year ago, when the ATMDtrack malware was created to infiltrate Indian ATMs and steal customer card data and was first detected by anti-virus companies. Following further investigations, researchers of Kaspersky, a leading anti-virus company, found more than 180 new malware samples which had code sequence similarities with the ATMDtrack, but they were clearly not aimed at ATMs. Instead, their list of functions defined them as spy tools, now known as Dtrack.
Dtrack can be used remotely as well, which means a cyber criminal wouldn’t have to be in your surroundings. They can then perform different operations, such as uploading and downloading files from these remote areas.
Mr Saurabh Sharma, senior security researcher, Kaspersky, said, “Although we have seen that the number of local threats in India have decreased in the last quarter, comparatively to a previous year. India is still consistently ranked among Top 10 countries in vulnerability maps. India still needs to continue increasing its cybersecurity efforts. The advanced persistent threat attacks highlight the importance of enhancing our threat landscape intelligence.”
However, Mr Pavan Duggal, one of India’s leading cybersecurity experts, said that the country’s cyberlaws must be improved to cover all kinds of attacks.
“The Act we have right now is archaic. It must be amended in such a manner as to put all new cyber crime threats covered under its ambit,” Mr Duggal said.
