Mangaluru, Aug 19: In view of the steady increase in instances of cyber crime reported in Dakshina Kannada, Superintendent of Police Dr S D Sharanappa requested all nationalised, private and co-operative banks in the district to immediately perform an auditing of their online security measures including reviewing the security level of data servers to undermine attempts of hacking into them.
Chairing a district-level bank security committee meeting organised by Dakshina Kannada police department and Lead Syndicate Bank at the regional bank office here on Wednesday, he requested banks to ensure that any attempt of hacking into data servers of the bank was dealt with immediately. Along with ensuring security of bank branches, there should be provision of equal or higher safety measures to cyber security to avoid cyber crimes such as domain hacking, phishing, spoofing and others by hackers or insiders.
He also directed banks to ensure comprehensive security measures in bank branches and ATM kiosks such as high-resolution CCTV cameras, panic buttons and burglar alarms for guarding currency chests in bank branches and to safeguard ATMs from skimming and scamming gullible bank customers. A typical way for a criminal to indulge in skimming is by installing a ‘skimming’ device over a legitimate ATM machine. Hence, access to ATM kiosks should be closely monitored, and CCTV cameras with poor resolution should be replaced with those with better quality. A nodal officer should be appointed by bank branches to review security measures at the branches and concerned ATM centres regularly, he said, adding that the access control mechanism in ATM kiosks should also be reviewed to restrict entry only to legitimate customers.
Stress on online security measures
Speaking on measures to tackle and counter cyber crime in the district, Mr Sharanappa said that creating security awareness in customers regarding e-banking and online banking in the present day was the need of the hour. Special measures should be taken to educate customers to ensure the security of their bank accounts. Since customers are encouraged more to indulge in online shopping as per the current trend, banks should ensure that One-Time Password (OTP) is made mandatory while handling transactions through online payment channels, he advised.
He told the representatives of nationalised and private banks to monitor the transactions of accounts opened in their respective banks by outsiders for suspicious activities, and provide details of bank accounts which are terminated abruptly, to the local police. He also encouraged banks to share details of crime intelligence such as modus operandi of fraudsters and defaulters with the police.
With regard to issues related to private security guards employed by banks, he directed banks to ensure valid gun licenses for weapons used by the security guards and ensure police verification and training of armed guards.
The police department will expect compliance of specified security measures in bank branches and ATMs within a month. All compliance reports from all branches of banks should be elaborate, he told the bank representatives, adding that banks should comply with the required security norms by September 30.
Additional Superintendent of Police V S Kumar, Lead District Manager Prabhu Alagawadi, Assistant General Manager of Lead Syndicate Bank Narayan Naidu, ASP Rahul Kumar, Regional Fire Officer Thippeswamy and several other police personnel were present in the meeting, along with local representatives of various nationalised and private banks.
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