By Sohini Banerjee and KS Roshan Menon
India’s financial sector has a burgeoning cybersecurity problem. Recent cyber-attacks underscore the severity of this malaise. Mobikwik, the digital credit and payments processing start-up, reportedly suffered a data breach that allegedly compromised the personal data of nearly 10 crore users. The breach saw the compromise of sensitive data, including credit and debit information, with news reports suggesting that such data was consequently posted for sale on the dark web.
The Mobikwik data breach is not an isolated incident. Recently, payments processor JusPay acknowledged the breach of 3.5 million records of masked credit card and fingerprint data, noting that the vulnerability manifested from an isolated system that stored such data for display purposes. Commentators have been quick to draw linkages between the two breaches, identifying cybersecurity as a vital priority for start-ups in the financial sector.
These breaches must be treated as evidence of a…
