FinMin expects report on debit card data breach in 10 days

Several banks, including state-owned SBI, have recalled a number of cards while many others blocked the ones suspected to have been compromised and asked their customers to change PIN (personal identification number) before use.

Fraudulent withdrawals have been reported from 19 banks so far while complaints have been received from a few banks that their customers' cards were used fraudulently abroad, mainly in China and the US while the customers were in India.

According to the National Payments Corporation of India, as many as 641 customers across 19 banks have been duped of Rs 1.3 crore using stolen debit card data.

The government asked regulator Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as well as banks to provide details of the data breach and also preparedness to deal with cyber crimes.

There are around 60 crore debit cards operational in India, of which 19 crore are indigenously developed by RuPay while the rest are Visa- and Master Card-enabled.

Of the debit cards affected, about 26.5 lakh are on Visa and MasterCard platforms while 6,00,000 are on RuPay. The breach reportedly involved some 90 ATMs.

While Visa and MasterCard, in separate statements, have stated that their own networks had not been compromised, Hitachi subsidiary Hitachi Payment Services, which manages some of the ATM network processing, was investigating the matter, including whether there was a malware problem.

The Hitachi ATMs deployed by many white label ATM players and Yes Bank were impacted by the malware while usage at other ATMs were completely secured.

While Visa and MasterCard, in separate statements, have stated that their own networks had not been compromised, Hitachi subsidiary Hitachi Payment Services, which manages some of the ATM network processing, was investigating the matter, including whether there was a malware problem.