The cyber attack at India's largest nuclear plant, Kodankulam, in Tamil Nadu last month raised big questions over India's cyber security.

After the news spread, it is being discussed that is India fully prepared to deal with any cyber attack? Can it protect against digital attacks damaging its critical infrastructure?

This debate has given rise to another big issue, is India ready to avoid the debit card hackers and other financial fraud, as it is the issue of crores of people of India.

Last month, the Reserve Bank of India gave a warning to banks. The warning comes after a warning from Singapore-based cyber security firm Group - IB, which said details of about 1.2 million debit cords are available online.

Last year, hackers fraudulently withdrew Rs 90 crore from Pune's Cosmo Bank accounts by cyber attacks on the bank's data supplier.

Arun Sukumar, head of the Cyber ​​Initiative of the Observer Research Foundation, told the BBC, "It is easy to attack India's financial system as we still depend on international banking networks like SWIFT for transactions. It is easy to attack because of international gateways.''

A report by cyber security company Simon Tech states that India is one of the top three targets for such cyber attacks.

However, this will decrease due to India's large digital population. Every month the population of France is connecting with computers in India and this is the biggest concern because for the first time the users of internet are also being asked to make digital payments.

For example, in November 2016, the Government of India abruptly banned the circulation of 500 and 1000 rupee notes, accounting for 80 per cent of the total amount in the country. As an alternative to this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi promoted digital payments quite a lot.

Whether the Indian payment platform is Paytm or the international platform is Google Pay, the business of both has increased significantly in India. According to a Credit Suisse report, by 2023, mobile payments will start in India by one trillion dollars. The use of credit and debit cards is also very popular. Today, around 90 crore cards are being used in India.

Technology expert Prashanto Rai told the BBC, "There are a lot of new people using the Internet in India, they have a population of more than 300 million. They are middle class or lower class people who have very low digital literacy. Among them are daily wage laborers working in different states who do not understand its language, there is a lot of possibility of fraud with them.''

Apart from this, Prashanto Rai also points to another problem, "The second thing is that there is very little reporting about the fraud of banks, many times consumers do not know what happened?"

Financial fraud occurs in many ways in India. Some hackers put card-mimicking skimmers on ATM machines or put cameras on keyboards for fraud. Through this a duplicate of your card is prepared without any doubt. At the same time some hackers call you and try to extract information from you.

Prashanto Rai explains, "The process of digital transactions in India is blurred and confusing. In the real world it is known who is taking money and who is paying but it is not always clear in the mobile payment platform. Examples For, a person is selling a table online, someone talks about making a payment online as a buyer.''

"He then states that he has paid and you will receive a code via text message. This is to ensure payment. Most consumers don't think about it and they tell that person about this code. The next thing they come to know is that the money has gone out of their account.''

The problem is that the system itself is neither secure nor transparent. In the fraud of Cosmo Bank, it was revealed that the software could not catch the mismatch in the pattern during such a large transaction. By the time the fraud took place, a huge amount of damage was done.

With no standard, online transactions are going to cause a lot of confusion for first time users. Look at ATM machines for example, there are many types and the interface of each payment app is different.

Sukumar also suggests another thing, according to him, it is also a problem of the people, there is a lack of general awareness among the people, due to which they risk themselves and the whole system.

Sukumar explains, "People using the keyboard also need to be cautious. The virus that attacked the Kodankulam Nuclear plant was due to an employee there. Which inserted an external USB into the system's computer. This threatened the entire plant system. The same is possible in any bank or financial institution.''

According to Prashanto Rai, the responsibility of protecting financial transactions rests with the government and financial institutions and not the consumers.

He tells, "The speed with which internet usage is increasing in India, looking at it, it cannot be left to education alone. It is not possible for everyone to keep an eye on vicious and efficient hackers as they constantly change their strategies and methods. In such a situation, the regulators have the responsibility to stop any fraud.

In addition, the pace of interaction between various cyber security institutions is also very slow. The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), which protects India's digital infrastructure, is often unable to provide timely information about threats to the government.

But the Indian government knows the problem. This is the reason why the country is preparing the National Cyber ​​Security Policy for 2020. It identifies six important areas in which the need for a clear policy is being felt. These include finance security.

According to Prashanto Rai, every important area within the country should have its own Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), which should have mutual communication and government play the role of convenor.

In the event of this happening, it will be able to effectively curb the threats coming in the way of India's cashless economy.

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