Companies operating in the financial services domain will have to develop novel preventive control mechanisms and significantly invest in reactive capabilities to keep cyber-attackers at bay, suggested an ASSOCHAM-PwC joint study.

“Incorporating a more agile cyber risk management approach may enable such companies to more effectively harness the ongoing digital revolution to their advantage,” said the ASSOCHAM-PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers) joint study titled, ‘Securing the cashless economy’.

It also said that with India seeing a shift towards cashless economy, the types of cyber security incidents like phishing, scanning, website intrusions and defacements will continue to grow.

“As the country is experiencing a digital revolution, the impact of this transformation makes it imperative for financial service players to revisit their cyber security resilience,” it said.

The study noted that measures like – agile security practices, security of new perimeter mobility, securing hyper-interfaced environment, high velocity identification, containment and eradication, next generation authentication, augmented ecosystem control, protecting context-rich personally identifiable information (PII) and ubiquitous awareness will have to be re-examined  to ensure adaptive and real-time cyber defence.

Mastering these areas will help financial services companies reach the forefront of industry.

“More intelligent transaction monitoring will have to be carried out as part of continuous surveillance, besides crisis response and recovery strategies will have to step up along with the increased digital footprint,” the study said.

It added that that given the increasing pace and complexity of threats together with clear focus on realising a more cashless economy, we must adopt approaches to cyber security that will require much more engagement from the industry, academia, governments, security establishments and civil society to protect critical business information without constraining innovation and growth.

“The need of the hour is a comprehensive, progressive and forward-looking cyber security strategy at the national level which bridges people, processes and technology, and requires us to deal with questions of technology, law and privacy,” said the ASSOCHAM-PwC study.