Bank of Baroda data leak: If you are BoB account holder, don't worry, here are 5 things you must know
One of India’s largest public sector banks, Bank of Baroda, has been hacked. Over 1TB of sensitive customer data is now available online for anyone
One of India’s largest public sector banks, Bank of Baroda, has been hacked. Over 1TB of sensitive customer data is now available online for anyone to access for free. But if you are a Bank of Baroda customer, you do not need to panic just yet. Here are 5 things that you should know about this data breach, and what you can do to keep your account secure. Read Full Story To give you some context on the data breach, the hackers have put the data on the dark web. This data is said to include personal information such as account details, names, Aadhaar numbers, as well as loan approvals, internal audits and more. That is, anyone can now access this data dump and go through all this information. Bank of Baroda has issued a statement regarding the breach. The bank says that the “incident involved compromise of an employee's email account, resulting in unauthorised access to certain data.” Though the bank added that its “core banking systems were not accessed and continue to remain secure.” But does this mean that you should not use your Bank of Baroda account? Not really, let us go through everything you need to know. 1. Is my bank account at risk? If you are worried that it may not be safe to use your Bank of Baroda account after the breach, IT veteran Srikanth Lakshmanan says that the system that manages transactions likely was not impacted. “The bank's transactional system doesn't appear to be affected, but its internal file sharing seems to have been compromised,” he tells India Today Tech. That is, while customer identity documents, bank statements, loan documents stored in these systems are said to be exposed, you can still continue making transactions normally.” Subir Sangal, CEO of Eagle Information Systems says that there is a chance that a scammer may be able to access your account.
Subir tells India Today Tech, “If there is leaked information which can be used to verify identity and/or account recovery, then there is a risk of unauthorised access. For precaution, it is advisable to change the password immediately, turn on multi factor authentication if available and keep an eye on account activity." While details of Bank of Baroda accounts have been exposed, the scope of the breach remains unclear. That is, we don’t know how many, if not all accounts were exposed. Additionally, from what we have seen about the leak so far, it seems that only customer details or audit information was made available online, while passwords or PINs were likely not. The one-time password, or OTP, system also remains in place. So, a hacker or someone using this information will still not be able to use your account without the OTP that comes to your mobile number. However, we would advise you to change passwords and PINs to be on the safer side. 2. Is there a way to check if my details were leaked? The leaked information has been put up on the dark web. But this comes with two problems. First, to access the dark web, you need to use tor, or the onion router. And you will have to manually search for your information in a massive set of data. But there is an easier way. Srikanth Lakshmanan’s CashlessConsumer has created a branch checker for this leak. He explains, “Customers can check using IFSC code if their branch is among 1088 (branches) that have been identified as likely exposed. Notification at individual level is not possible, something the bank should do.” You can check if your branch was affected by using the IFSC code of the branch in this checker. Subir Sangal concurs. He advises customers to contact their branch to find out details. “The responsibility of the bank is to investigate the incident, identify the affected customer(s) and advise them.
The BriefWire