CySI institutes an award for internet banking

A joint programme by Cyber Society of India,
Centre for comparability EU studies and IIT Madras

Computer Security Day is observed worldwide on Nov 30th.  This year Cyber Society of India (Cysi) marked the day with a Workshop on Cyber Security at Dept of Humanities and Social Sciences IIT, Madras on  02-Dec-2011, thanks to the sponsorship and patronage received from the Humanities and Social Science (HSS) Dept of IIT and Centre for Comparitive European Union Studies.

The meeting commenced with a Welcome Address by Shri K Srinivasan, President of CySI.  In his address, he dwelt briefly on the activities of CySI especially on its commitment to create awareness on the threats and vulnerabilities of an e-transaction and the use of ATMs and Internet Banking.  He announced institution of an award for the best bank with the most secure and user-friendly Internet Banking features.  Selection criteria,  the committee of jury and other related procedural issues are being addressed, he said.

Shri V Rajendran, Senior Vice President announced the purpose of the Meeting and introduced the distinguished panel of speakers describing their individual capabilities and talents.

Dr C Pandurangan a senior Professor of IIT Madras and Head Indian Statistical Institute, setting the tone for the workshop emphasized the importance of PIN and the password in ATM and Internet Banking transaction. He added that security is not the responsibility nor the domain of a single person or one entity but the collective task of the regulators, users and the service providers. 

Inaugurating the workshop, Smt Sonal V Misra, I.P.S. Supdt of Police, CB-CID Chennai  spoke on the global scenario on cyber crimes, especially on the dangerous trend of some economies which mainly thrive on fraudulent money. She said the public needed safety and justice from the state, which mainly consists of the police, the prosecution and the judiciary adding that what is needed is certainty of punishment and without much delay, admitting that it is a long way to go in India to ensure speedier justice, a tech-savvy administration, a deterrent  punishment system and above all, a computer-literate net-savvy users at the grass-roots level.

Key note address was delivered by Shri M Ramkumar General Manager Canara Bank  He spoke about the responsibilities of banks and public sector banks in particular to ensure customer focused and customer-centric service and use IT as an enabler in all electronic delivery channels .  He added that more initiatives like introduction of a 2-factor authentication in the form of One Time Password for Internet Banking transaction, more secure ATMs with CCTV enabled are all being considered.

After the Tea Break, there were three thematic sessions, the first one on Network Security  by Dr. B. Muthukumaran, Country Head, Secure IQ.  He spoke about bots  and compromised networks and the threats posed by them.  Shri S.N. Ravichandran, CEO Nilagiri Chemicals, Coimbatore spoke about the ills of social networking sites like Facebook and cautioned against posting personal information in it.  Shri S. Balu, Addl Supdt of Police (Retd) T.N Police presented the legal provisions highlighting the strength of I.T. Act 2000 and ITAA 2008.

There was a very lively and extremely interactive session with participants posing questions on a variety of topics like the strength of ISO 27001 standards, the level of security in a Card transactions, the legal position in the event of loss in an ATM or other card transaction etc, all of which were aptly answered by the panelists on the dais.

The meeting concluded with vote of thanks by Shri V Kapaleeswaran, Life Member of CySI followed by lunch.

(Report by V Rajendran and Kapaleeswaran)
please also watch a report by NDTV Hindu on this event.