C-Edge Technologies which provides services to cooperative and regional rural banks faced a ransom attack. A day after the attack the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said that the issue had been solved. NPCI temporarily isolated the service provider from accessing its retail payment systems.
C-Edge Technologies, set up in 2010 to provide technology-related services to small banks, is a joint venture (JV) between Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and the State Bank of India (SBI).
On Thursday (August 1), the payment body stated that the connection with C-Edge had been re-established following a security review by an independent forensic auditing firm. Following this, UPI services are back online for about 300 small banks that were heavily impacted by the cyberattack.
“Investigation confirms that the impacted systems have been isolated by C-Edge to contain the potential spread of the ransomware. Further, necessary security reviews have been conducted by the auditor to ensure that the rest of the infrastructure is clean,” the NPCI said in a statement.
The payment body said that the impact was limited to the systems hosted in C-Edge’s own data center, it also mentioned that the infrastructure of the impacted cooperative banks or regional rural banks was not attacked by the cyber attack.
“The services of co-operative banks and regional rural banks, which were dependent on C-Edge, have now been restored. With this, respective banks shall be able to offer (a) a full range of services seamlessly to their customers, as it was before,” added NPCI.
A ransom attack is nothing but malware that encrypts files such that users are barred from accessing them. Hackers restore user access if they are given ransom in return for a decryption key.
While there’s no official news on which banks were impacted by the cyberattack, C-Edge’s website mentions that Meghalaya Cooperative Apex Bank, Meghalaya Rural Bank, and Maharashtra Gramin Bank were targeted by the attackers.
Currently, in India, cyberattacks are so common these days, as per a report, nearly 64% of surveyed Indian organizations faced ransomware attacks in 2023, with an average ransomware demand ranging around $4.8 Mn.
