Fighting against the rising menace of cyber attacks in India, SWIFT, the global network that enables trillions of dollars transfers each day, will introduce a Customer Security Framework for its member banks to upgrade their systems.
Under the framework designed by SWIFT, banks have to adhere to 16 mandatory controls and 11 advisory controls, reported the Business Standard.
In addition to this, each bank is required to confirm compliance on an annual basis. Banks which fail to adhere to the mandates, will be reported to the Reserve Bank of India as well.
Talking about the framework, Kiran Shetty, CEO, SWIFT India, “There are certain mandates that we are making within the community now and if they don’t comply with it, we will be publishing their names in the system.”
“If I am a bank and if you want to send me some money , you will be able to look at my credentials related to cyber security and make your decision whether you want to deal with that bank or not. And we will also report this to the regulator saying that these banks have not complied,” she added.
For generating awareness about its designed framework, between November and December last year, SWIFT India started engaging banks.
This framework will be released to member banks by the first quarter of the next financial year. While SWIFT will start collecting details on these mandatory controls from Quarter 2, 2017, the enforcement of mandatory requirements will start from January 2018. SWIFT will then conduct inspections from internal and external auditors to ensure compliance of these controls.
Applying these standards will help raise the security bar for customers on the SWIFT network and support to prevent and detect fraudulent use of their infrastructure. Implementation of these standards will also increase security awareness and education in the on-going fight against cyber-related wire fraud.
Last year, nearly 30-32 lakh debit cards came under threat after a malware infestation.
As per the audit done with the current member banks, SWIFT has observed that there is a significant opportunity to strengthen the transaction banking channels of Indian banks.
