For this unidentified bank user all hell broke loose on November 14. Obviously, his bank account was just compromised. Even before he realised it, all of his money is gone. On a single day that day, his balance had dwindled to ₹68 from ₹35,905 as hackers attacked his account from multiple cities and payment services.

Feeling happy that you have just beat the cash crunch as you used your mobile wallet to buy something or pay someone? You’d better take a lesson or two in safe usage of your mobile wallets and online bank accounts. Or, hackers will simply check in to your accounts and siphon off all the money.

Hackers have just woken up to the new opportunity in the sudden spurt in e-money transactions as demonetisation drive created a huge shortage of liquid cash.

Those who never used a card online or on their mobiles are downloading wallets and their bank apps to fight the cash crunch. People, retailers and utilities are all happy as e-money has made their lives easier as chaos grips the nation. majority of users that have just downloaded the apps don’t have a credible security solution.

Large-scale attacks

Cyber security experts foresee large-scale attacks on mobile phones and PCs. “A vast majority of those who are downloading the apps are either uneducated or not aware of the ways of the cyber criminals. Their phones may have been compromised already as they unknowingly downloaded some malicious gaming or such other app. Their online activity is being tracked and can copy the security codes in the background,” says Rajat Sahu of Internet security solutions firm eScan.

Ritesh Chopra, Country Manager of Norton by Symantec, says that one out of five consumers have at least one unprotected device, leaving their devices exposed to ransomware, malicious websites and phishing attacks. “Our survey says that at least one-third of Indians share their banking account passwords with others,” he points out.

Some wallet companies have seen more than five-fold increase in their transactions and the app downloads have grown by more than 300 per cent. This, in turn, has driven the economy to adopt the mobile payment modes quickly by vendors as well as new users be it for taxi ride or buying grocery, he said.

Mobile wallets are being filled up with money for use for daily purchases. “But at the same time, this has opened up the gates for hackers and scammers to target the mobile base users. This was not very attractive for cyber criminals,” Govind Rammurthy, CEO of eScan, said.

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