Is your money safe in bank?
Around 5 hours ago, I got two messages from my bank that someone have tried three times to login my bank account but failed and my online banking have been ceased to operate for one day.
Message got from bank:
You have made 2 invalid login attempts for your username xxxxxxxxxx on 28/10/2016 17:04, you are left with 1 more attempt and your user access will be locked for a day post 3 wrong password attempts.
Within a minute second message entered into my mobile:
Your user name locked for the day due to 3 wrong password attempts on 28/10/2016 17:04. To unlock, click forgot login Password link.
To see these messages I was feared for a few second and unable to understand whether my money was in account or not. Immediately I reached at my bank ATM and checked my balance. It was okay. I just made another transaction and withdrew entire money. I did it because recently I found millions of cards have been compromised in India. It was nearly 3.2 million users debit card. Most of users have their account in State Bank of India, the largest Indian Bank. Approximately 6, 00,000 users of SBI lost their money.
According to Indian Express newspaper, 19 Indian banks have got complaints from their customers that there money was spent in foreign country while they were in India. Most of the transactions were made in China and USA. GC Murmu, the Additional Secretary of Financial Services in India, informed Indian Express that 0.5% of total debit cards in India were used to access fund from customer’s account.
Appointed investigating officer for debit card scam told the Business Standard newspaper:
“One of the processors of Hitachi Payments’ central switch had been attacked and the malware deployed on its switch was active for six weeks. Data of all the transactions passed through the switch has been possibly compromised. This happened at YES Bank, White Label Operator ATM (WLA) and a Korean bank ATM.”
I don’t know what is “switch” that hackers have been able to deployed malware there and stole the data of millions of users data. This was also informed by The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in a press release held on 20th October, 2016.
Visa Card, Master Card and RuPay are three big payments processors in India. Their collaborating investigation revealed that hackers may have possibly hacked switch provider’s system to steal card data.
Though RuPay card holders haven’t faced this problem, it is not safe to use card outside India. According to NPCI, only 19 Indian banks card holders have been attacked, it is possibly 641 customers who lost 13 million in total. All customers have been instructed to change their ATM pin number as soon as possible. In case where banks are unable to inform their customers, cards are being made inoperative instantly and reissued.
The situation is alarming. But I hope, soon, engineers will create such a security system that could never be invaded by hackers.
Some information regarding hacking of debit cards are taken from here
Even when banking security is working at 100% they are still not safe.
My grandparents experienced a bank holiday, where every bank shuts down and then a few reopened only to explain that every dollar is now only worth $0.75
When Obama took office his first decision was whether or not to impose another bank holiday to devaluate the currency, he decided to use Quantitative Easing instead, but the option is still on the table if the US is ever in desperate need of money.
That's a weird synchronicity. The same thing happened to my dad a day or two ago! It must be even more prevalent than I had thought.
Online banking has become unsafe.
Have to be careful with everything, all the time!
some ICICI & HDFC account holders also faced same disaster