SBI blocks over 6 lakh debit cards after data breach that includes HDFC, ICICI & Axis bank too

Many Indian banks including SBI, HDFC Bank, and ICICI have reportedly been breached and in consequence of the same, State Bank Of India (SBI) has blocked more than 6,00,000 debit cards of its customers and will issue fresh cards to them.

An SBI spokesperson confirmed the news saying that card network companies NPCI, MasterCard and Visa had informed various banks in India about a potential risk to some cards in India "owing to a data breach".

"Accordingly, SBI has taken precautionary measures and have blocked cards of certain customers identified by the networks," the spokesperson said, without revealing the exact number of customers who would be affected.

According to an Economic Times report, a malware related security breach may force as many as 3.2 million debit cards being replaced by banks that include, State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and Axis Bank.

Of the debit cards affected, 2.6 million are on Visa and MasterCard platforms, while 600,000 are on the home-grown RuPay platform, the paper said citing unnamed people aware of the matter.

HDFC Bank said it had already taken action on the matter a few weeks back. "Besides advising those customers who we know have used a non-HDFC Bank ATM in the recent past to change (their) ATM PIN, we are advising our customers to use only HDFC Bank ATMs as we believe security controls at some of the other bank ATMs may not be at par with HDFC Bank ATMs," a spokesperson said. "We take this opportunity to reiterate that it's always prudent to change ATM PINs from time to time. It prevents misuse."

Apparently, the breach is said to have originated in malware introduced in systems of Hitachi Payment Services, enabling fraudsters to steal information and a forensic audit has now been ordered by Payments Council of India on Indian bank servers and systems to detect the origin of frauds.