WannaCry Ransomware cyber attack: Why Indian banks, ATMs remain unaffected by malware?

A few locations in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala reported ATM malfunction but overall, India has been safe. Why?

New Delhi, May 16: In the wake of the WannaCry Ransomware cyber attacks, Indian banks and ATMs managed to successfully beat the global attacks and remain unaffected by the biggest cyber attacks in Internet history that have crippled nearly 200,000 computers across 150 countries with systems bending down on its knees with encrypted data refusing access to the users. The WannaCry Ransomware cyber attack was first reported on May 12 in around 45 countries and within a few hours as many as 45,000 attacks were carried out in 74 countries across the world, with the attackers demanding $300 to 600 to give access. Amid all this, India remained unaffected by the WannaCry Ransomware. A few locations in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala reported ATM malfunction but overall, India has been safe. Why? This is because of the of the much sophisticated systems India has used since long than what is being used by the global community. “India is not at all the victim of the attack in the manner the other countries of the world are facing today,” said Ravi Shankar Prasad. To know what is WannaCry Ransomware, Dance of the Hillary and the hoax that was circulated on WhatsApp, click here.

While the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cleared that it has advised the banks to operate their ATMs only after a software update with a security patch to protect them from such cyber attacks in future, it did not see any bank data being encrypted by the WannaCry Ransomware in any of the major banks in India. However, there were speculations that some banks in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh had got affected by the cyber attacks. “RBI has asked banks to update specific Windows patches on ATMs urgently and not to operate ATM machines unless updates are in place,” an official with RBI said. (Also Read: RBI advises banks to operate ATMs only after software update)

“As far as this cyber issue is concerned, the Government of India is keeping a very strong watch on it. As per our information up to date, there have been isolated incidents in very limited areas in Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. But we have been updating our whole security measures since March itself, software has been installed,” Union Minister of Information and Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

“We are closely monitoring the situation and have instructed the local IT teams of our bank to keep a watch on the systems in branches,” said a banker with State Bank of India. “In some cases, the malware comes from external devices interacting with the banking networks. We are keeping that under check too,” he added, reported Economic Times.

The Indian financial system also claimed that despite WannaCry Ransomware’s cyber attack on thousands of establishments across the globe, India managed to remain unaffected by it. This does have raised eyebrows. “Another area of concern is the patch management. OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) release patches after known vulnerabilities are escalated to them and if the patches are not rolled out in time, we are practically leaving the door open for exploitation,” said Reserve Bank of India deputy governor SS Mundra. (Also Read: Follow these steps to protect your computers)

“The biggest requirement for financial institutions at such moments is isolation of the affected device from the mainframe, thereby preventing such viruses from spreading across the network,” he added.

Indian ATMs still majorly use the old and most feared to be easily hacked Windows XP operating system. They run at a much slower speed so it is likely that the slower speed of such systems didn’t let the WannaCry Ransomware attack them. While the ATM manufacturers have said that nothing amiss was reported in the ATM network, they usually do not save any financial transaction data. I do not think that machines will be particularly vulnerable to such malware attacks, which encrypt files,” said the chief executive of an ATM manufacturing company.