India a popular destination for data theft: Report

New Delhi: As the country`s estimated USD 108 billion IT services industry is becoming the world`s favoured outsourcing centre, India is emerging as a popular destination for cyber data theft and may witness growing activity of hackers, says a latest report.

"Data theft is one of the biggest risks posed before the companies in the banking sector. Emerging underground websites help the data thieves to immediately encash the stolen data. Same data can be sold to multiple interested buyers in these underground black markets," the report by Pune-based Indiaforensic said. It said the availability of low cost resources for cyber activities in the country is also another factor contributing in stealing of financial data. "When it comes to information technology, India is full of low cost resources. When the anti-fraud mastermind is required to carry out the dedicated hacking activity or a spear-phishing activity, services of various experts are sought for. "This includes technology experts like spammers, designers and non technology experts like cashiers, droppers, money mules etc. These resources are easily available at very low cost," said the report by Indiaforensic, a firm which conducts fraud examination, security, risk management and forensic accounting research. The firm has also helped the country`s investigating agencies like CBI in several high profile cases such as the multi-crore Satyam scam. Financial data is one of the most lucrative data for the fraud masterminds. "India`s USD 108 billion IT services industry is the world`s favoured destination for outsourcing. Over 40 per cent of exports by the industry are support services for the global financial sector, ranging from investment bank back-office functions to research, risk-management and processing of insurance claims," it said. One needs digital currencies to buy stolen credit card numbers in this underground deep web, mainstream currencies like Euro or USD are not allowed in this portion of web, the report `Laundering in Cyber World- The Digital Currency Way` said. Data theft becomes critical when it is perpetrated by outsiders like hackers, malwares and phishers having access to technology programs capable of accessing and stealing digital information such as credit card numbers, debit card numbers, prepaid value card numbers and bank account credentials, it said. "India is going to witness growing activity of hackers due to the growth of outsourcing units. There is a direct nexus between the outsourcing firms in the financial vertical and the data theft," the report said. It said the recent USD 45 million ATM heist, Bank of Muscat in Oman and the RAKBANK (UAE) had the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) operations in India. "ElectraCard Services was the company that processed prepaid travel cards for National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah PSC (RAKBANK) and Bangalore-based Enstage Inc, which processed the transactions for the Bank of Muscat in Oman," it cited as example of the growing menace of data theft. "ITES based firms and securities agencies need to further upgrade infrastructure to check any incident of data theft," said Mayur Joshi, founder member of Indiaforensic. PTI