KARACHI: Poor Information Technology (IT) infrastructure has made Pakistani banks the victim of frequent cyberattacks, with industry experts estimating that cyber warfare costs local banks around a billion rupees in losses each year.
Pakistan has reported more than 628 defacement attacks that changed the visual appearance of a website or a web page since January this year, according to data from cybersecurity services provider Pakistan Computer Emergency Response Team (PakCERT). The attacks have increased after the COVID-19 outbreak in March and subsequent lockdowns which increased online transactions.
Pakistani financial institutions, mainly banks, are the main targets of fraudsters who seek personal information through spoof calling and by impersonating bankers or law enforcers or through phishing websites, Sagheer Mufti, chief operating officer at Habib Bank, told an online conference last week.
"Social engineering frauds alone may have cost the local banking industry up to one billion rupees a year," he said, adding that the global cybersecurity market would grow 12-15 percent through 2021 amid increasing attacks worldwide.
"Some 521 defacement attacks were reported between March and July, with the highest number in June,” Qazi Mohammad Misbahuddin Ahmed, chief executive of PakCERT, told Arab News, adding that victims had lost "valuable information or cash."
In November 2018, a mass skimming operation hit customers’ credit and debit cards, taking details of nearly 20,000 debit and credit cards from 22 Pakistani banks, according to PakCERT. At the time, the head of Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency’s cybercrime wing said data from "almost all" Pakistani banks had been hacked.
As a result, the state bank ordered all banks and microfinance lending institutions to carry out extensive assessments to identify potential weaknesses in their systems and arrange independent third party audits of their security processes.
But cybersecurity experts say Pakistan’s IT infrastructure, particularly for banks, remains vulnerable to cyberattacks.
“In Pakistan, some banks may be using unsupported software that is hackable,” New Zealand-based cybersecurity expert Dr. Rizwan Ahmed told Arab News. “They also don’t conduct risk assessment of the infrastructure designing, whether it can withstand attacks.”
He added that financial service providers in Pakistan should be obliged to use licensed programs: “Pakistan needs a regulatory authority that should ensure the banks and other financial service providers use licensed software because many institutions are using pirated software."
