This may be one of India’s biggest financial data breaches; 3.2 million debit cards of SBI, HDFC, ICICI, YES Bank and Axis hit

India is facing its biggest ever breaches of financial data. The breach is said to have originated in malware introduced in systems of Hitachi Payment Services, enabling fraudsters to steal information allowing them to steal funds.

Following this, banks are going to replace or ask their customers to change security codes. As many as 3.2 million debit cards have been hit and if you are a customer of State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, YES Bank and Axis Bank, you should probably speak with the bank representatives.

As per various reports, Several victims have reported unauthorised usage from locations in China. Out of 3.2 million debit cards, 2.6 million are said to be on the Visa and Master-Card platform and 600,000 on the RuPay platform.

Now, Payments Council of India has ordered a forensic audit on Indian bank servers and systems to detect the origin of frauds that might have hit customer accounts.

NPCI Managing Director AP Hota told ET, “We have received complaints from banks about debit cards being used in China which aroused suspicion. Though most of the suspected fraudulent transactions happened in the Visa and MasterCard network, we thought a whole a forensic audit of the entire network will help us find out where the compromise happened.”

"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 HDFC spokesperson told ET.

On Wednesday, 600,000 SBI debit cards were hit and the bank has now asked customers to change their PIN numbers as well.

"Based on the complaints we have received, we are suspecting a compromise on the non-SBI ATM network which could include various white-label ATM service providers. Therefore, as a precautionary measure, we have blocked six lakh debit cards. We have assured our customers that there has not been any breach on the ATM network of SBI," SBI Chief Information Officer Mrutyunjay Mahapatra told ET.

Banks had been receiving multiple complaints from customers about cards being used in China at various ATMs and point of sale terminals. They in turn alerted Visa and MasterCard. A forensic audit is being conducted by Bengaluru-based payment security specialist SISA.