India’s online data security | Fusion - WeRIndia

According to a report by Intel Security Group, now it is much easier to buy stolen private data like credit card details and medical records than before. Which begs the question: how prepared is India to face this challenge? With the Digital India initiative, the records of every citizen will be digitized. However, according to the report by Intel Security Group, India is not prepared to face this challenge.

Cyber criminals are able to buy online details of people like credit card details, account information of online payment services, login details for e-commerce sites to music streaming services, medical records and even data related to digital identities like social media and email accounts.

Stealing data online has been trend running since a long time. In fact, there are many websites which offer software and tools used by cyber criminals to steal financial data. However, stealing data has evolved into a much simpler process as most criminals now don’t need to use any tools. The report says that they can easily buy the information online from sellers and it is not even costly.

Raj Samani, the vice president and chief technical officer for Intel Security in Europe, Middle East, and Africa said that it is not even very hard to find the information. One can search from traditional search engines for stolen financial data like credit card details. Samani is the one who authored the report. Since the information is so easily accessible it offers a great challenge for India.

He said that the access to information of Indian users is much higher than Americans. For just $15, criminals can get details of a user registered in India. Details like name, address, phone-number, date of birth, and mother’s maiden name etc. can be bought for $30-$35.

As the Digital India initiative is coming up, the country has to take necessary precautions to protect the data of users. The IT Act 2008 does not completely cover the issue either. Cyber crimes have evolved and so should the preventive steps.

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